Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen Sailing Turbulent Waters

It has not been easy sailing for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen MMORPG as the game struggles with its community. To make matters worse, a leak has surfaced that could plunge it in turmoil.

A fresh letter that is alleged to have been leaked from a backer under NDA has been circulating around for about a week or so. This follows dealing with the response from fans to the new artistic direction Visionary Realms is taking Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. It initially appeared yesterday on the MMORPG forums, and since then, numerous other publications have confirmed they, too, received the leaked letter, Other public forums have been cued in the attack (both MassivelyOP and MMOBomb have confirmed they did).

If the leak is accurate, Ben Dean of Visionary Realms is said to have sent a letter to Pantheon’s backers, The document is rumored to discuss the company’s change to 24/7 testing, which was first announced in July. This testing was initially intended to keep testers involved in the MMO over the long term. At the same pace keep players in the game while the development team adds content. The recently leaked letter appears to shift the emphasis more toward making money from the “247” testing.

“We are in a position now where crowdfunding has slowed, and there is still a lot of worldbuilding and content to create. Continuing this trajectory is not reasonable. We could continue, and Pantheon would launch, but it would still be a long time from now. We have made huge advances in efficiency and velocity, but its projected launch is still years off at this pace. If we can monetize 247, not only can it potentially earn some revenue, but it can gain positive attention from potential partners to invest in Visionary Realms as a company so that we can launch Pantheon in a more reasonable time frame.”

Visionary Realms hasn’t explicitly stated that the letter that was leaked is legitimate yet, but it also hasn’t explicitly refuted it either. The game’s community manager addressed the issue on the public Discord this morning, as reported by MassivelyOP, and promised that more information would be released “soon.”