Yesterday we reported that Crowfall has been purchased by independent game studio Monumental, which developed the game Mythgard. ArtCraft plans to move on to other projects, and it will no longer be associated with the development of Crowfall, but that didn’t stop the founder, J. Todd Coleman from giving a little bit of history on the project, and what lead to the sale to Monumental.
Todd Coleman began his blog outlining the parallels between the development of Crowfall and his previous game, Shadowbane, a game that was published back in 2003 by Ubisoft, and closed back in 2009 only to be resurrected when a Chinese company Changyou acquired the source code and reopened the game. The tale of Shadowbane and his introduction to with fellow developer and critic Monty Kerr, was essentially the precursor to what would end in the sale of Crowfall.
The devil, of course, is in the details. After the official launch of Crowfall, the player numbers began to dwindle as we reported at the time. Kerr contacted Coleman to go over specific points of the game that he believed could be done better, but the lack of resources to enact any positive change at that point would prevent the team from developing the game to be the best version of itself. It was at that point that Kerr made an offer, and the board of directors for ArtCraft accepted. ArtCraft will now be split, with some of the team headed to Monumental to continue their work on the game.
“The company that was ArtCraft is being split down the middle. Gordon and Blair and the Crowfall team will be joining Monumental. Josef and I will be working on a new game (that we started with completely separate funding, by the way) and keeping the newer folks who were hired for that project.”
-J. Todd Coleman, Founder ArtCraft Entertainement
Coleman states that he’s happy Kerr is able to take the reins and that Crowfall will live on. The blog then ends with a statement from Kerr himself, as he details his love for Crowfall and Shadowbane before it. He is quick to point out that he loves the idea of Crowfall and that he intends to finish and expand the game as development continues. While we can’t unequivocally say that this will change the trajectory of how Crowfall’s popularity has been waning in recent months, we hope to see Monumental’s new vision, as the game matures throughout 2022.
