Pantheon's Visionary Realms has addressed the reports about a leaked letter detailing the company's intention to effectively monetize its new 247 play mode in a post on the game's official Discord.
However, the response might not have been one many Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen backers have been hoping for.
As we and other outlets reported yesterday, a letter purportedly leaked from a tester of Pantheon under NDA was floating around, detailing the fact that Visionary Realms was looking at its new 247 play test mode as a way to spin it off and monetize to fund development. This caused some concern among the community, as we all know how side projects for crowdfunded MMOs have turned out in the past, and some felt this was taking away from the game they actually had backed.
What has apparently turned up when testers went to play Pantheon has been equated to an extraction game, something that the announcement confirms in the new statement.
Now, in a statement on the game's official Discord by Ben Dean (who was the author of the leaked letter), the company addresses the reports, saying that the 247 play mode has the "potential to stand on its own feet."
Here is the statement by Ben Dean in full:
"In regards to some posts you may have seen this week, we would like to offer some clarity.
The 247 play mode began life as a testing tool. We soon saw its potential to stand on its own feet. We believe the marriage between MMO and Extraction is something that will speak to a much larger audience than we have reached to date and we are exploring that opportunity. This is not a cancellation of Pantheon, as Pantheon and 247 are symbiotic and developed in tandem. If we choose to monetize 247 and it is successful, it could potentially allow Pantheon to launch much sooner than currently projected.
We will outline 247 and what it means to our players in our Producer's Letter Thursday, Oct. 26."
The statement stresses that working on the 247 extraction mode does not mean the "cancelation" of Pantheon, as Dean stresses that if they monetize the 247 play mode successfully, it can mean launching Pantheon Rise of the Fallen much faster. However, looking at the public Discord, backers aren't taking this well.
However, the statement is vague on exactly what the "marriage between MMO and Extraction" is. Does this mean that Pantheon will be an Extraction MMO instead of the game that backers have paid for so far, or are we seeing something akin to Ashes of Creation's spin-off Battle Royale mode Apocalypse or Chronicles of Elyria's claims that Kingdoms of Elyria directly feeds into the development of its MMO? This isn't the first time MMO players, especially crowdfunding backers, have seen something like this play out.
We'll have to wait and see on October 26th, though that is a long time for concerns and speculation to fester.
