In August of 2021 we learned about CODEX, a game that sprung from the original engine that powered Shards Online before it shifted to Legends of Aria. The devs behind CODEX had big hopes for the game, stating one of its goals was to “change the way we play massively multiplayer games” thanks to gameplay broken up into seasons.
Readers will recall CODEX went into early access about a week after it was first revealed, and the last news we had heard was that Aria developer Citadel Studios would handle publishing duties for the MMO. That was just about a year and a half ago, with news about the project going dark, while Aria itself took a hard turn into crypto after it was bought out by a blockchain company called Blue Monster Games; Aria had originally confirmed a non-blockchain version but shortly scuttled those plans and most recently changed its name while its related token crashed.
In that intervening time, things have changed quite dramatically: CODEX is now shifting from a standalone MMO to a platform that lets peple craft and host their own MMOs themselves. The tool comes from the two-person team of Jeffrey ‘Miphon’ Edwards and Smoozilla, who previously worked with Citadel Studios to develop the Shards Engine for nearly 10 years before forming Corp Por, which then acquired the CODEX property from Citadel Studios and a license to use the Shards Engine “in perpetuity,” effectively severing ties with the company.
As for CODEX’s new form, the devs are working on releasing a public server that will let users host MMOs, as well as a world builder tool and additional features like multi-story buildings and network optimizations. In the future, CODEX plans to arrive on Steam and open up testing, though some networking tests still need to be performed before signups begin. Until then, future updates are planned to be shared on CODEX’s new website.
