The end of 2022 and the very beginning of 2023 offered up some hefty MMO studio drama centered around the game TitanReach. In summary, the game’s IP was allegedly stolen from disgraced original developer Square Root Studios by new developer Archage Studios to be repurposed into its own game, first called Titan Reach (note the spacing) and then renamed to World of Titans.
World of Titans is once again in the news for a couple of important updates. First, the Kickstarter drive that the game began in January fell well short of its goal, raising just over $5K from 19 people before time ran out. Additionally, the demo that was on offer during the drive and was set to stay online until May 1st has also been pulled, citing problems with Unreal Engine as the cause. “[W]e continued to have problems with Unreal Engine 4.26 and felt it was only doing the game misjustice. For that reason, we made the decision to pull the demo down so we can get ready for the Unreal Engine 5.1 version,” the post explains.
Despite these setbacks, that same announcement made some big promises for Titans’ future, including more sharing of its current progress, gameplay changes that hope to “hit true to home for a lot of MMO players,” gameplay previews, and the final announcement of “something huge.”
Until this “huge” announcement, the studio has been more than eager to sell founder’s packs for a game that hasn’t even gotten off the ground and therefore skirt the bare minimum of consumer protection afforded by Kickstarter. The lowest priced pack gets your name in a backer list for $7, getting a digital copy of the game requires at minimum a $19 purchase and is limited to 250 copies, and prices ratchet up from there, ending at an eye-watering $5K.
We do want to point out once again that Archage Studios has only a de-listed asset rip game to its credit, so perhaps consider that on top of all of the other red flags before opening your wallet.
