Visionary Realms’ Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen finds success in Early Access

Visionary areas is an ambitious game studio that recently launched Early Access for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallena massively multiplayer online role-playing social fantasy game.

The December 13 launch on Steam was a bittersweet moment for the team led by gaming pioneer EverQuest Brad McQuaid. McQuaid died at the age of 50 in 2019, in the middle of the game’s development.

But the team pressed on, and after years of development, the company was able to launch early access for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, a high-fantasy social MMO game for PC. It’s available on Steam for $40.

In an interview, the game directors said they were honored at the reception for bringing back the classic challenge, discovery, awe and social experience to MMOs, and they hope sharing the story will inspire other indies.

“Getting to this point is a very proud and humbling experience,” said CEO Chris Rowan in an interview with GamesBeat. “But we released it in Early Access on Steam and the response was spectacular, with mostly positive reviews and great sales. We’ve found our way into this concept of open development, doing things with the doors and windows open and inviting the community to be part of it, share what’s happening, take their feedback and incorporate it into testing at an earlier stage than it was ever actually done.”

He said there have been ups and downs in this process, but the outcome has been positive. The game is still in development but can now generate revenue through early access payments.

The early access build includes six zones, six playable races and 12 playable classes. Players can level up to level 40 and more content will be added throughout Early Access. So far, the game has reached 40,000 unique players and more than 6,000 have signed up for Early Access.

“The numbers are great and concurrency on Steam is strong,” Rowan said. “The concurrency was better than expected and quite healthy. It went really well on the first day and has been stable since then. We were actually in the top 10 on the first day, which was exciting for a small studio like us.”

Gameplay features

Available features include Shared Adventure, where players create adventure groups and guilds with friends to overcome greater challenges and earn greater rewards. It also features a “Climb Anywhere” feature that allows players to climb almost any surface in the game to adventure in any direction.

It also features Discover with Perception, where you can use the Perception system to find clues, dialogue, and outcomes that enrich the story and your travels. And you can plunder the depths, where you can delve into numerous dungeons with other players, where each cave can lead to treasure, battle or a new friendship.

Players can battle a menagerie of monsters in challenging battles where strategy, knowledge and teamwork determine victory and defeat. Players can take on roles such as tank, healer, damage, or support and choose from a variety of class abilities to customize their loadout.

Players can also acquire powerful and iconic equipment and rare abilities that are reminiscent of the locations you have been to in the game and the battles you have won. These things can strengthen your character with improved attributes and unique effects. The inhabitants of the world of Terminus are diverse and can exhibit a variety of different behaviors that change their actions and strategies, ensuring that no two adventures are the same.

Origins

The team started thinking about it game in 2015in times of casual gaming, pay-to-win and other new business models being tested. World of Warcraft was having a good run and the team wanted to make a classic MMO that really sets the bar high for quality.

“Brad and I had worked together, and he felt with great passion that it was time to bring back the spirit of MMOs, what made them really great at their core from the start, and and there were a lot of those from people, who loved the idea,” said Rowan. “There were a lot of people who felt like they were orphaned by what makes MMOs so great. This momentum was building. And before we knew it, Visionary Realms was launched and it was time to build Pantheon.”

The game progressed slowly at the beginning and was only very tightly funded. The idea came about and the first serious financing came in 2017. This has helped to hire more people and grow the company. But then tragedy struck.

“When Brad passed away in 2019, people thought the project would die,” Rowan said. “Perhaps contradictorily, it motivated the community and the team even more. You know, if you believe in something, if you make a game because you want to play it yourself, if you’re really passionate about it, then people will go through with it. We were largely driven by passion and sacrifice as well as creativity and hard work. And to be completely honest: ingenuity and courage.”

Overcome challenges

“This is the work of a small indie studio that has had to overcome many very serious challenges along the way, while also watching other works fail to make it to the finish line,” said Rowan.

Along the way, the company remained independent and stayed true to its vision through courage, persistence, and some angel and crowdfunding.

Visionary Realms has challenged the boundaries of developer transparency with a lot of openness, interactivity and honesty with the community. That was ultimately the path to success, Rowan said.

At its peak, the team consisted of around 30 people, but now there are around 18 to 20, some of them part-time workers who have other jobs. The company has raised less than $10 million through a combination of investors and crowdfunding.

“The effort and commitment and passion and sacrifice was just amazing,” Rowan said.

When asked how the team held together after McQuaid’s death, Rowan said: “I want to thank everyone involved in the project – their commitment, their passion, and that extends to the community too.” People wanted to see how this game was built becomes. We made it because we thought the world needed a game like this. Again, we built it because we wanted to play it. Just like Sven Vinge said at the Game Awards.”

He added: “Sven said that the game of the year (for 2025) will be developed by a studio. It may not be us, but it can be developed by a studio developing a game that they want to develop, designed not by the marketing department but by passionate game designers. And after the shock wore off, everyone said, “We have to do this.” We have to do this because the world needs this game. We have to do this for Brad. We have to get through this.’ Our resolve has been renewed.”

The company has also successfully changed the art style to make it more timeless and speed up development. There was also a significant change in leadership style, resulting in faster production, iteration and progress.

“There is currently a trend towards a lot of Souls-like games. I would describe our game as a classic MMO,” said Chris Perkins, creative director, in an interview with GamesBeat. “There is a classic genre of MMOs when the genre itself began. It was very different and unique in style than modern MMOs. They were very sociable. They didn’t hold your hand often. In some cases they could even be quite punitive. I think one of the things that sets us apart is this classic style.”

Perkins added: “We’re bringing it into 2025 and we’re not interested in making a really cumbersome, like a fossilized game that’s really hard for people to get into.” We recognize a lot of the quality of life advances that are happening in the achieved over the years. We want to make a game that’s more accessible, but we want to make a game in the modern era that really goes back to that classic formula that’s kind of been lost.”

For the team, Classic means games that were expected to be more of a shared experience among players. There is more of a social element. The game wasn’t that on rails. And the goal was to create a more sophisticated MMO in terms of mechanics, but also one where there was a risk-reward ratio, as there is some pain associated with death, Perkins said.

“This could be the last chance we have. In fact, this may be the last studio that truly believes this can be a style of MMO that lasts today,” Perkins said. “This is an opportunity to do something that there may not be another chance to do. There’s a lot in that that drives us.”

For better or worse, the latest AI tools didn’t arrive in time to be truly useful in the game’s development. The team is still experimenting with AI, but Rowan said it’s not quite there yet.

“We arrived at EA before the AI ​​tidal wave hit,” Rowan said.

The roadmap

The current goal is to process the enormous amount of feedback and refine the released game. The team views the current offer as part of the game. Then the next task is to power up the next part of the world, which is huge. On the technical side, the company plans to upgrade to the Unity 6 operating system with new optimizations and better performance.

“It’s been a real journey despite a lot of adversity with a lot of bumps along the way,” Rowan said. “We had a really tough year in the industry last year, with many studios falling by the wayside. I’m just happy that we got here thanks to our community support, the passion of the team and the support of our customers, and we plan to go even stronger from here.”

The team was small but made good decisions and focused on user-friendly, accessible game development technology. The team built their own platform with a focus on low-code and no-code using node graph technology. It allows designers who are not programmers to integrate content into the game without having to interact with the programmers, Rowan said.

“It’s truly amazing that a team of this size and with this budget was able to pull this off,” Rowan said. “The proof is in the pudding. It’s out there.”

“People love it, our passion and our long hours combined with really good, accessible technology,” Rowan said.