Another week, another new studio popping up with a pseudo MMO and a laundry list of the biggest investors in the industry desperately dumping money into something they hope will take off. Wait, I made that sound like a bad thing. I’m not sure it’s a bad thing?
Anyhow, this week it’s Gardens, an indie studio building an unnamed – wait for it – an “ever-evolving online PvPvE fantasy adventure sandbox ARPG.” Hey, we have a shorter name for this! It’s an MMORPG! Welcome to our genre!
“It’s a game inspired by our favorite memories playing online RPGs, MMOs, and fantasy action-adventure games over the years, memories of crossing paths with strangers,” today’s press release quotes co-founder and game director Chris Bell as saying. “The game builds upon multiplayer ideas and lessons from previous titles I helped design like Journey, Sky, and even my student game Way, while bringing players into a higher stakes, shapeshifting fantasy wilderness where cooperation is key, yet betrayal is still possible. We’re including novel cooperative gameplay that rewards players who help each other, which can encourage friendship and dialogue with PvP and conflict in interesting and subversive ways. We’re growing the world we want to play in every day, a world designed to offer new experiences every time you play, growing and evolving for years to come.”
The actual announcement being made today calls attention to a massive $31.3M raised in Series A funding from what it calls a “BONKERS” (yes, all caps) list of investors, including Tencent’s Lightspeed, Krafton, Nintendo, Mike Morhaime’s Dreamhaven, Jeff Strain, and a bunch more. Let’s see how far that kinda money gets into the MMO landscape in 2023, eh?
