It’s been a couple of years since we heard much out of Valiance Online, one of the original superhero MMORPGs that spawned in the wake of the closure of City of Heroes (which has since been revived and officialized). It didn’t manage the crowdfunding heft of City of Titans nor the fast development of Ship of Heroes, however, and it’s been quiet now for years.
Readers might recall that it even held a brief open beta back in 2020, but our own playthrough showed that it was nowhere near beta-ready. After that, the game apparently went back into a private test phase just for investors, though apparently that didn’t last long, and there’s been little from SilverHelm Studios on the forums or social media since the 2022/2023 era as the team has worked on building a “foundation” for the title.
The last useful memo came from developer Skipjack almost a year ago, when he acknowledged Discord snark about whether the game was dead. In short, he says it’s still being worked on.
“[T]o answer, the game is still in development yes, actively being worked on but all core stuff. There’s been some changes on the back end, so our heads have been down into the monitors and burning eyes, plus that slight worry last year during Unity’s little tantrum and back track. But yeah. Can’t super say something died when it’s not really been released. But I get the worry. Still just chugging along as best we can, when we can.”
But last year a donor asked about the status of the game on the forums themselves; no developers answered. Players did, however, and basically deemed the game dead owing to its unplayability and lack of comms. “At least we do have City of Heroes back,” one fan wrote earlier this week. Oof.
