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.