Everquest creator Brian McQuaid has unveiled a new Kickstarter to kick off the year of high-profile crowdfunding projects. Introducing Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, coming to Windows and Mac January 2017.
Pantheon will be a fantasy themed MMO bucking trends by openly targeting a very specific niche, although it is not above taking inspiration from newer games. Brad promises his new company, Visionary Realms, is going to make a new game using today’s technology but in the spirit and feel of his older Everquest games.
Much like the old Everquest RPGs, Pantheon will reward team gameplay and exploring the world, so don’t expect a solitary grind to get you far in this one. As for inspiration from new games, combat will be challenging, along the lines of Monster Hunter and Dark Souls, and also deeply rewarding.
The Kickstarter page also drops hints on other things they will be doing differently from other MMOS, such as a game economy that tries to delay and minimize item value deflation, and adding in designed downtime, to allow players to form social bonds.
The game world will be a step above the usual fantasy realm. Terminus is a world where mortal and planar shards collided and continue to collide with each other, resulting in a world which continues to build on top of itself constantly. Visionary Realms calls it an epic planar high fantasy, and having worked on worlds as expansive as Everquest, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Myst, this is a huge promise to make indeed.
Now, here’s the thing. The company is already hard at work on the game, paying for it out of their pockets. The Kickstarter for $ 800,000 is to fund the hiring of more employees and to ensure its completion. Stretch goals reach to as much as $ 6,300,000, at which point you will literally be able to play in the sky and in the sea, not to mention run your own servers.
Here’s the interesting thing to me. Considering they’re targeting Mac, to launch alongside PC, I suspect the game will not be graphics or power intensive at all, which is great or bad news, depending on how up to date your personal computing setup is. They can certainly make a scalable game, but that will depend on the developer’s priorities.
Another thing of note is the long development time, which I hope they can cut down, but may be a sign they don’t plan to increase the size of their studio that much, so that these veterans can focus on delivering on their vision.
Visionary Realms is proud to proclaim Pantheon is not for everyone. Is it for you? You can find out more and fund the game yourself here.
