A
post on Steam announces development of
Untamed Isles is now in
"hiatus." The game was officially announced
just a month ago as a monster collecting
game with a "unique" limb-swapping feature. It turns out the game also "leaned
into the crypto market" which has left it broke. Undeterred the developers at
Phat Loot are "confident" the project will resume once "the crypto
situation is resolved." As noted on
Kotaku, purchases of pre-order packs are being refunded, but
Kickstarter backers are out of luck:
"Due to our cash reserves being empty, we are not in a position to refund our
initial backers. We are truly sorry about this and wish this scenario was
different." Here's the news:
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.