Pantheon’s been a bit of a nail-biter the last year or so: Following the devastating death of its legendary founder Brad McQuaid, development appeared to slow down, and last fall studio Visionary Realms worried longtime fans with comments on restructuring, technical troubles, and funding. In October, Producer Ben Dean told players that “crowdfunding, at the rate that it is now and has been, will get the game launched” but that it would take “more time than it would if [VR] had a quicker injection from a publisher or a major investor” and that he “would rather get the game done quicker without sacrificing [VR’s] integrity.”
Here’s a slice of welcome news, then: Visionary Realms just announced that it’s received a “seven-figure” investment for the game and added a new board member, the president and CTO of finance service company FreedomPay.
“The investment provides a runway for Visionary Realms to bring the hotly-anticipated Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen to its goals in 2021 and beyond. The studio plans to use the funds to continue the game’s development; begin preparations to support over 8,000 players already signed up for an alpha release of the game; and strengthen its back-end systems supporting the game client, accounts and front-end web platforms.
“In addition to this achievement, Christopher R. Kronenthal will join the company as a board member. Chris is widely recognized for his expertise in managing and architecting global solutions and omni-channel environments for the world’s largest brands, and providing Fortune 500 companies with industry-leading solutions consulting to drive global commerce connectivity and payment security.”
A follow-up newsletter from Visionary Realms says the investment from a “private party” isn’t “full funding” but will “allow [the studio] a nice runway to get the recently-completed evaluation build out to additional potential partners while hitting some major milestones in 2021.”
“While we are not yet ready to go into too much detail until the planning stages are finalized, we are looking at several big milestones this year. These milestones include game progress, but also back-end tech supporting the game, web and other systems. We have some exciting prospects this year on partnerships as well which span the gamut from potential business partners to potential creative partners to potential marketing partners. Again, this shouldn’t be considered as any form of announcement, but rather an update as to the opportunities in front of us this year. We will have more to share over the coming months with more details as to the concrete milestones and their expected delivery dates.”
