Chronicles Of Elyria Developer its He’s Running Out Of Funds Again

Chronicles of Elyria’s development history has been an incredibly messy one. At the start, it looked like all was going well with the ambitious MMORPG’s development. Soulbound Studios managed to raise $1.3 million during its initial crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter and an additional $7.7 million of additional funding from subsequent crowdfunding campaigns on their website.

Three years after the game’s intended launch, Soulbound Studios managed to release a still in development albeit with a smaller team which consisted of himself and a few remote workers.

Since December 2020, Walsh has been releasing regular developer updates and touting ongoing improvements to Chronicles of Elyria and its spinoff Kingdoms of Elyria. The latest update, however, brings grim tidings of the game’s future as Walsh reveals that the project will soon be running out of money due to the sudden rise in hosting and operating costs. Because of this, Alpha 2 has been delayed indefinitely while Walsh tries to keep the studio afloat.

He also maintains that there’s no “giant stockpile of cash” leftover from the crowdfunding campaigns as backers claim. According to Walsh, he was even forced to take out a Paycheck Protection Program loan during the pandemic which allowed him to continue working on Chronicles of Elyria from 2020 to 2021. The money has since run out and he’s now been pouring his family’s assets into the studio for the second time since development started on the game.

“Here, I'm afraid, is where I have to make a confession,” says Walsh. “Almost six years into development, Chronicles of Elyria remains one of the most important and significant things in my life. So much so, that I had a long conversation with my wife and we agreed that Chronicles of Elyria was worth our own livelihood to see it through.”

“So, for the second time in the history of Soulbound Studios, I began emptying my family's savings and liquidating our assets in an effort to fund the continued development of the game,” he adds.

Once the money runs out, Walsh its that he’ll need to lay off his remote contractors but will continue to work on the game by himself, saying that some indie studios have managed to survive with just one developer. He notes that development on the standalone empire management simulator, Kingdoms of Elyria, is nearly complete and that he would be finishing the final stretch alone. He also reveals his plans to talk to investors and publishers to secure much-needed capital for the studio.

Meanwhile, in arbitration.