Back in October, we briefly covered the news that Travian Games, Shroud of the Avatar’s European publisher since 2017, appeared to no longer be featuring Shroud of the Avatar on its website. Since then, multiple German games sites have raised the issue again, noting that Travian didn’t promote the game at Gamescom this year either and that Travian’s community managers for SOTA seem to have gone offline last month.
So what exactly is going on? We reached out to Portalarium for a statement, and we now have one direct from Starr Long, who confirmed that the partnership has ended and that Portalarium has taken back over publishing in the region.
“I can confirm that we are no longer working directly with Travian,” he told us. “While we greatly appreciate the partnership and work done for Shroud of the Avatar by Travian, we decided it was in the best interest of the product and community to directly sell and support Shroud of the Avatar in the areas which Travian had been managing going forward.”
SOTA suffered a round of layoffs this summer and Richard Garriott shed his CEOÂ title while staying attached to the game as creative director, though Garriott has maintained that the game is performing well and patches have continued rolling out on a monthly basis.
MMO players will also recall that rival MMO Crowfall also partnered with Travian Games to publish the game in Europe, Brazil, the Middle East, and North Africa, though ArtCraft has said it aims to have a single universe for all players.
