Hey Tamers,
Today I want to share extremely sad news with you all. We have to pause the development of Untamed Isles and put the project on hold. With a heavy heart, we made this decision and we understand our amazing community will be shocked reading this.
Fighting every day against an inevitable current because of the promise I made when we embarked on this journey. A promise I will still intend to keep, but not one that I now have the ability to decide the timeline to. There have been a myriad of factors that have caused the lead-up to this very moment but what this all comes down to is that we are unable to financially keep up with the demands of what we set out to do.
Untamed Isles is a very ambitious title being an open-world monster-catching MMORPG. To work on this project we brought more than 70 staff members on board and we were working relentlessly for more than 2 years to build the game we all were dreaming about. The truth is that the cost of development is high and there were lots of bumps on our way to this moment. Since we started the journey in 2020, the economic landscape has changed dramatically both generally and specifically for cryptocurrency, and we are not confident in the current market. We ran out of financial resources and we can’t carry on the development at this moment.
We leaned into the crypto market and expanded rapidly off the back of the positive interest. When the crash came, we ended up heavily exposed with too short of a runway. The game remains game-first, crypto-second in design, but crypto funds have become, and remain, essential in getting us to the release. Unlike many of the projects that have foundered in the storm, we actually have a great game design that could stand on its own two feet. But until the crypto situation is resolved - and we're confident it will be at some stage - then we have to hibernate development on this project.
We have such a passion for Untamed Isles and we don’t want to see it launch unsuccessfully and be forgotten. We want to bring our vision to life. Unfortunately, in current circumstances, it means that we have to take a pause and rethink our approach. We can’t say how much time it will take, but we still hope to see you at the Isles one day.
We couldn’t ask for a more caring and loving community. You guys were there for us on every step of this journey and we had so much fun together during beta tests and game nights. The team that worked on Untamed Isles are the most talented and amazing group of people. Making today’s announcement is one of the most difficult things in my life because of all the love I and every team member have for this project.
I’m sure you have lots of questions and we will try to answer as many as we can. You can find a FAQ in the next message covering some of the things. Please respect the privacy of team members and don’t send DMs.
Thanks for all your support,
Josh & the Phat Loot team