Last month we followed up on tips from our readers about TitanReach, which apparently came back under a slightly different name and new ownership. The return of this already beleaguered MMO raised questions of its own, as new steward Archage Studios and the original game’s lead dev Unravel had different stories about what happened between the two parties, ultimately leading to accusations that Unravel’s copyright was stolen; make sure to click that link for the generally insane granular details.
Since that report, there have been a number of updates. Firstly, the game now has a different name entirely – World of Titans – as well as a live Kickstarter campaign and a free demo available on Steam. The Kickstarter is seeking $100K to see the project over the finish line, covering overhead fees, marketing costs, and legal fees needed for “establishing a production that ensure its protection in the world from duplicates, claims, etc.”
The Kickstarter page as well as the game’s website further details various portions of the game’s content, from combat activities to crafting. The Kickstarter also confirms that World of Titans will have a subscription model, asking $8 a month to access the game.
We note that the game’s site has cleaned up significantly from its original version, with much more information about the game itself and a culling of erroneous portions that linked back to groups discussing female libido, though the studio’s website itself still has some of the originally reported oddities. We also note that the original video footage from the old Titan Reach has since been scrubbed.
As for the name change, Archage Studios posted a dev blog about the matter, which also pushed back against copyright theft claims throughout the post, claiming once again that Unravel “gave [the studio] permission after countless times of contacting him and communicating with him” and also claiming that a search of the IP trademark for both Australia and the US turned up no such filing.
In spite of this, Archage has elected to rebrand the game regardless.
“Our goal as a studio was to present an engaging, fun and exciting new MMO to the world and give people something they really wanted during the original Titan Reach. With all of this being said, we attempted to revive Titan Reach and give it out little spin… but sadly it seems Titan Reach the name just has become so tarnished, it’s like sour milk… spoiled!”
At the time of this writing, crowdfunding has raised just over $2,600 with 27 days left in the campaign. The game’s demo is available to try and has even been updated according to a Discord message to a version that “condenses the player experience to a much smaller area” for testing purposes. That same Discord will also be host to a developer Q&A on Wednesday, January 18th, at 6:00 p.m. EST.
On top of the usual caveat emptor of backing crowdfunding anything, we also remind readers that Archage Studios stands accused of other questionable practices before the World of Titans debacle, including using a stock image as a shot of its studio and cranking out a UE4 asset-filled survival shooter that was delisted from Steam.
