At this point, we all see a press release from a new startup studio with tons of investment money touting devs from the likes of Blizzard, Riot, and BioWare and roll our eyes since they’re a dime a dozen – literally, I’ve heard about three new ones in the last week – but this one actually looks interesting even without the pedigree. The company is called Elodie Games, and it’s building a game codenamed Project Skies (not to be confused with Project Sky), a “social cooperative action RPG game.” It’s not actually clear how massive it might be, though the pitch talks up “inspiration” from MMOs and indeed seems to have a lot in common with other upcoming games like Palia and Wayfinder.
“Project Skies is the first game from Elodie Games, a recently formed studio of industry veterans from top studios such as Riot Games, Blizzard Entertainment, and BioWare. Project Skies draws inspiration from the many RPG, massively multiplayer online, and multiplayer online battle arena games our team members have worked on such as League of Legends, League of Legends: Wild Rift, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, the Mass Effect series, and Dragon Age.
“Project Skies is a social cooperative action RPG game with deep progression and replayability. Players take control of iconic champions and explore the vibrant, uplifting fantasy universe of Project Skies. The gameplay experience is deeply co-op and seeks to bring you and your friends closer together through both casual and competitive play. Project Skies is being built as a fully cross-play experience. Our gameplay, art direction, and underlying technology come together to create an experience that feels fully featured and native on every platform we support. This, along with our cooperative gameplay, brings players together, regardless of platform preference. Of course, players can switch platforms at any time while retaining their full progress.”
The studio says the game is still in early development, but it has opened pre-alpha registrations. “Spaces in the pre-alpha will be limited initially, but we will ramp up the frequency and size of our playtests throughout the year,” Elodie promises.
