Earlier this month, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen launched into Early Access. The release is momentous: having been in development for ten years with a few restarts and tragedies along the way, Pantheon finally launching in some way is a good thing, regardless of your views on early access.
Yet, the road doesn’t end here. Pantheon is still very much in active development, with more work to be done before they can call the MMO ready for its 1.0 full release. With classes yet to be added, zones, and crucially important gameplay systems still to come, Pantheon feels like it’s just getting started.
From the jump, Pantheon hearkens back to the classic era of MMORPGs, something our reviewer thinks Visionary Realms has really nailed in how Rise of the Fallen plays even in this early stage. Speaking with MMORPG.com after the first weekend of Early Access, creative director Chris “Joppa” Perkins tells us that the team is actually trying to do more than just feel like classic EverQuest, rather they are trying to thread the needle between EverQuest and vanilla World of Warcraft, as if there was a third game in the mix back in the day.
“I think we are on track to really nailing what we’re trying to nail,” Perkins explained when asked about the style of MMO Pantheon is trying to achieve. He continued, “And to the casual observer, that might sound like a clone or direct throwback to EverQuest pacing and mechanics and things like that. But the reality is, we’re actually trying to walk this line inbetween these two major categories, which would be classic EverQuest, which I would define as the original trilogy, and classic World of Warcraft as it launched initially, or very similar to the current Classic experience.
“So in that sense, that’s what I feel like we’re, to use the same phrase, what we’re nailing right now is that evolution or that third path. If you could go back in time to when WoW launched and imagine a third game that stayed a little bit closer to EverQuest’s social nature, some of its more classical design decisions in terms of things like a death penalty, a little bit more punishment in regards to the challenge of the game, and you know, taking a loss [or] failing at something [there is] a little more sting to that. That’s kind of what Pantheon is trying to be.”
Perkins describes it as a “renaissance” of that classic era, positioning Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen as a potential third game that deviated from the path forged by World of Warcraft at the time. Instead, Visionary Realms’ MMO is trying to stay nearer to the EverQuest formula in terms of overall game design, whereas we know history has taught us that MMOs after that era tended to emulate World of Warcraft. Yet, that isn’t to say that Pantheon isn’t trying to emulate some of what made classic WoW such a juggernaut when it first released.
“One of the most important things that we’re taking from World of Warcraft is the accessibility,” Perkins explained. This means that the team isn’t making things hard “for the sake of making them hard and cumbersome,” for example, but ensuring that while these systems might be harsher than maybe a modern MMO, they are still more forgiving than maybe even classic EQ. Perkins also explains this could mean things like a “less harsh death penalty,” or simply making it less punishing for the new player - especially maybe a younger MMO player who never spent time in Ultima Online or EQ back in the day, but has tried to jump into Pantheon since it hit Early Access.
Catering To A Modern Audience
Despite its aim to hearken back to the MMOs of yesteryear, Visionary Realms is keenly aware they are building an MMORPG that also has to appeal to a more modern audience. While the MMOs of 2024 are much different than what was released around that EverQuest - World of Warcraft period that Pantheon is shooting for, and as a result, Pantheon also has to appeal to an audience brought up on games like The Elder Scrolls Online and Final Fantasy XIV as much as it will appeal to those longing for the Ultima or OG EQ days.
MMOs nowadays are much less social than they once were. Paraphrasing the popular streamer Shroud, Perkins remarked that modern MMOs are less social worlds and more “glorified lobbies” with “no real sense of adventuring through a world.” Though, Perkins does remark that in that first weekend of Early Access, it was good to see the younger generation who might never have played classic WoW, EverQuest and such really enjoy Pantheon’s early iteration.
That said, going too far into the old-school feel might not necessarily keep those players around, especially newer MMO fans who might like the shared world but want to explore it and enjoy it largely by themselves. While classic MMOs are largely defined by their social bonds, many of which were forged in grouping for dungeons, raids and more, modern MMOs tend to eschew hardcore grouping content for more solo-friendly approaches, though many will still require a group on occasion to complete pivotal story moments or chase the best gear.
Because Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is aiming to bring a classic feel to the modern MMO landscape, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there aren’t plans to cater to solo players at all. However, Perkins says that it’s quite the opposite: Pantheon does want to make soloing viable.
“This is one of those inflection points where MMOs are always evolving, but especially in this Early Access phase, there are still major portions of the game, major aspects of the game, that are still evolving or in an incompletely implemented state. And the reason that’s important to say is because one of the things I think people get wrong about this game, but by playing it you wouldn’t necessarily see it, is that the goal is to make soloing not viable. That’s actually not the goal. And in fact, it is the opposite.
“People think of EverQuest and games like EverQuest as group-only games, for forced grouping games. And the reality is actually not anything like that. There were so many classes in EverQuest that could solo. Some of them could solo even more efficiently than groups could progress.”
Perkins states that where Pantheon finds itself right now is as a good “group-centric game experience.”
“If you get a party of players together, that’s where a lot of the magic really comes to life in terms of the combat mechanics, group synergy, the challenge of the game.”
However, the team is working on the solo side of the experience right now, intending to make it a more viable option for players who might not have a few hours to spend getting to a dungeon and then going through it with a group of friends, but instead may only have a short amount of time in-game.
“Times have changed, and you don’t have the same amount of playtime. I mean, even just getting down into the depths of a dungeon can take upwards of an hour sometimes, depending on the context. And if you only have two hours to play, then it doesn’t really work. So we do want a robust solo experience, and that’s kind of the next phase that we’re in right now is improving that and making it more viable. [U]ltimately the goal is that players are free to do either or but that there would be incentives in grouping that would actually encourage them and motivate them to explore that, but not feel like they have to.”
A Long Development Journey
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen has had a long development cycle and not one that has been easy the whole way through. From its initial failed Kickstarter campaign to the loss of its most recognizable creative visionary, Brad McQuaid, in 2019, and everything else in between, from direction changes, art style revamps, and controversies, Early Access was a long time coming.
Perkins knows this and, in a way, sees the MMO’s Early Access launch, which he admits the MMO right now is effectively in an Alpha state, as a way to help put to rest some of what he calls “hyperbolic narratives” that have formed around the game and the studio over the years.
“[There are] a lot of narratives surrounding this game, and I think a lot of people are aware of that. Yeah, it’s been a long journey. We’ve had ups, we’ve had downs, we’ve made mistakes. We’ve had unforeseen, sometimes tragic events that have happened that have absolutely shaken things up and taken time to kind of recalibrate. There’s a lot you could point to and look at. We’re one of those Kickstarter-era games that have been in the public eye for so long that it’s take on so many different narratives, depending on where you look and who you listen to.
"One of the most important things, I think, for shaping our narrative and correcting our narrative now and as we go from here is getting more people playing the game. Because when you play it, yea you can see the flaws, you can see the gaps; you can see where there are still things and work that needs to be done. But you can put to rest so much of the hyperbolic narrative and the bad faith narratives that exist about the game and really judge it for what it is, which is a growing foundation of something that I think is on track to be really special.”
Crowdfunded MMOs have a stigma in the MMO world as so many of them seem to languish in development for years, with developers either providing overhyped promises, little actual evidence of a viable product over years, or creative controversy over something they’ve said, done, or failed to do. For every game like Pantheon or Ashes of Creation that might be taking much longer than initially thought but still shows progress, you’ve got crowdfunded games shrouded in controversy like Chronicles of Elyria.
One of the major narratives took the MMO’s community by storm late last year was its leaked and then announced 247 extraction mode, and the fallout surrounding it. The mode itself was put forth as a potential way to drum up more funding if the team decided to go that route, but moreover, it was also meant to test features faster and implement changes at a faster clip to get more feedback. The outcry was swift, and the team canceled the mode a few weeks after its existence had been leaked by backers in the first place.
Perkins maintains that he is a “big fan” of the mode (and mentions it could be considered as a tool to use “down the road”). Still, the controversy and the reaction from the community showed the Visionary Realms team just how much “wiggle room” that did - or did not - have with creating something for its audience.
“We learned through that just how much wiggle room we actually have - and I should say, don’t have. [...] We do want to do right by our audience, and I think statements like that and realities like that prove true over time. You can say it all you want, but what separates a Chronicles of Elyria from a Pantheon or anything like that, both the game and the team behind it prove out in time. The intention here is to make Pantheon; it always has been, always will be. Everything we do is in support of that.”
While the 247 Extraction mode might not have been everyone’s cup of tea, especially as it seemed that active development on the actual MMO Pantheon’s backers were waiting for seemed like it was halting in favor of this spin-off, it eventually led into the seasonal model Visionary Realms adopted earlier this year. Taking it a step further, the seasonal updates were using a lot of the information the team learned from the brief 247 extraction mode testing to pump out faster, more iterative updates, leading into the Early Access launch this month.
You can make the argument that without that seasonal model earlier this year, Pantheon would not be in Early Access right now, something Joppa agreed with when I posed the question to him during our talk.
The seasonal cadence also allowed the Visionary Realms team to get things like the back end infrastructure in place to keep an MMO online 24/7, which has resulted in relatively smooth (though, as with any major live service game at launch, not perfect) server performance since its Early Access launch. Additionally, the seasonal cadence turned into what Perkins describes as an “incredibly effective development pipeline,” which helped fuel the eventual Early Access launch.
One thing that I always find interesting when talking to developers on long-in-development crowdfunded projects like Pantheon is just how much is out in the open for prospective players during the development process versus traditional MMO development. Since Pantheon is partially funded by the very players who want to jump into this MMO, development doesn’t have the shroud of secrecy most of the games industry operates under. While not everything is shared during its development lifecycle, one aspect that has been laid bare as a result is just how long these games take to develop.
Because of this, part of the aspects that make following a project like Pantheon or any other crowdfunded project exciting also makes it frustrating when development deadlines are missed or large chunks of the game are thrown out mid-development, or, in the case of Pantheon, an art style was revamped during development. So much of this happens at other studios, but we just never see it - yet with games like Pantheon, it’s mostly all in the public eye.
“I don’t ever want to disrespect or disregard someone’s frustration because I’ve been on that side of things so many times with games, and I get it: perception is reality,” Perkins tells me in response to my question about long development times and how much of the frustration is borne out of a general lack of understanding of how long games actually take to make. He continued, “So I do understand and empathize with it.
“But like you said, games take a really long time to make, and there is this kind of perception out there that a game like Elder Scrolls Online or Star Wars: The Old Republic or whatever game you want to point to - there is a perception that they started with a design in mind and a plan and they just executed it and then released it. And the reality is games go through incredible amounts of iteration, of trial and error, even in some cases scrapping years worth of work to restart in certain ways, at certain times, and all of that happens before you even know that the game is being worked on.”
Piquing Player Interest
Since its launch on Steam Early Access, Pantheon has seen some pretty good numbers. The first weekend saw a total concurrent peak 2321 players on Steam alone, and that number has only climbed as the month went on. As of the time of this writing, Steam’s concurrent player numbers have risen to 4228 players, according to SteamDB. It should be noted that these are simply the Steam numbers - Pantheon also has its own native launcher where backers have been able to play as well.
According to Visionary Realms in a follow-up email with MMORPG, the total concurrent max is “just under 6,000” while Pantheon boasts “over 40K” total accounts. It’s important to note that total max concurrent players doesn’t necessarily mean total players who have logged in during the Early Access period, simply the highest amount that has been online at the same time.
There are also many potential backers who simply won’t hop in till the full MMO is released, eschewing the Early Access release in the meantime. I do wonder about Pantheon’s staying power, but right now it seems to have captured the attention of many players either craving that old-school feel or simply curious about this game they’ve heard about. It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on these numbers as we head into the first stages of 2025.
The Journey Ahead
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is at the start of this next phase in development, one where the team can both continue to add the features and gameplay systems that have been talked about for years, as well as iterate and respond to player feedback in real time. While we know that Visionary Realms is working on making solo a bit more viable right now, we also know that the team is working on getting the next class in the MMO, the Druid.
Perkins states that while the Druid itself should be coming “pretty soon in the New Year,” there is no current ETA on the Bard class, and while he knows there’s excitement out there for the class, he doesn’t want to “put an expectation out there” in terms of a release timeline because of the amount of work left to get the Bard where it needs to be to truly be a great addition to Pantheon.
“There are some pretty special things we want to do with the Bard with sound and our audio team, and I don’t yet have a good enough picture of the work that’s going to go into that to give a reasonable timeline, but I think it’s going to be worth it.”
Beyond that, Perkins mentions that the “next area of the world” is in development, Black Rose Keep, while the team aims at upgrading the game to Unity 6, the engine that powers Pantheon. If you liked the way Pantheon progressed during its seasonal cadence earlier this year as well, there’s some good news: the development cadence for Pantheon post-Early Access launch should be incredibly similar.
All of this is aimed towards the goal of getting Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen’s full 1.0 launch ready within two years of its Early Access launch. That’s pretty ambitious, but Perkins is confident in the team that has been forged and refined throughout all the years of development, controversies and struggles.
“We have been refined and shaped as a team to where now I feel very confident in what we can accomplish.”
