Jeffrey Butler’s metaverse MMO Avalon reveals trailer and AI-driven player content tools

November 14, 2023 1:00 PM

This past March we reported on the existence of Avalon, a blockchain-linked metaverse MMO from Avalon Corp, a company that has former SOE and Sigil Games developer Jeffrey Butler (of EverQuest, EverQuest Next, and Vanguard fame) as its chief product officer. The announcement at the time was focused on Avalon Corp’s ability to raise venture capital, its ambitions to make a game where big brands could be housed, and its eagerness to utilize both Web3 and AI tools to let players build their own in-game MMO experiences; it’s because of Butler’s association to the project that we’re reporting on it at all.

Avalon has now resurfaced from that mire of corporate double-talk with a gameplay teaser trailer and a press release full of even more buzzwords: The announcement heralds partnerships with Didimo and Inworld AI that let players “design characters and interact with NPCs in ways no MMO to date has allowed” thanks to “Didimo’s Popul8™ end-to-end character creation platform and Inworld’s AI-powered character engine.”

Additionally, while the presser doesn’t outright state any blockchain or crypto links – it even goes as far as to suggest “[d]esign decisions are steeped in the art and sorcery of game-making rather than the finance and business of the metaverse” – a statement from Butler in the presser talks up his intention to “foster a community for [its] namesake game that is able to create their own content and benefit from it, and immerse themselves in content that others have made and shared.” The presser effectively tap dances around its blockchain associations but it’s saying most of the same thing with different words.

Avalon currently has no targeted testing or release windows as of yet.