Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen January 2019 Newsletter

This year’s first newsletter for Visionary Realms’ upcoming MMORPG Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen looks back on the year that was and then lets us know what we should be looking forward to in 2019. And apart from that, the newsletter brings us an in-house Q&A with the studio’s new Lead Animator Ross Armstrong and shares a lore-packed short story. Here are a few sample paragraphs and you take it from there:

It’s customary at this time of year to look back over the past 12 months in reflection, and look forward to the coming year with anticipation. For many people, the new year is a time to make resolutions on things they wish to improve upon. We here at Visionary Realms are no different, as we continually set goals, adjust our timelines, make improvements and index our progress. One of our resolutions last year was to grow our team with a key addition or two if the right candidates came along and it was financially prudent. Little did we know of the upheaval the gaming industry would face in the final quarter of year and the glut of supremely talented people it would leave looking for a new opportunity. While our team is very financially disciplined – as you have to be when you’re an independent developer that has been largely crowdfunded – we also know when to take action on a rare event. With your unwavering support, we were able to offer positions to several key areas of development, and keep our long term budget in tact. Knowing that we could increase production speed and increase implementation of a myriad of systems and features without impacting our long term finances was an incredible boost to the team and showed us once again that we have the single greatest community in gaming. So from each of us here at Visionary Realms thank you for your continued support.

We kick off January with an interview with one of the fine folks you helped bring on board – Ross Armstrong, our new Lead Animator who has oodles of industry experience. Next up is a feature which amongst the team is one of our favorites: Justin Gearhart’s continuing lore epic – The One Between the Winds. We continue with our latest iteration of Under Wraps as Game Producer Ben Dean looks back on the year that was and looks forward to what’s to come. Like every newsletter before it we end January with a look at our most important facet, our community. This month’s Community Spotlight member is Chris Kane who is looking forward to the unique experience and challenge that only a game like Pantheon can deliver.

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And what’s to look forward to in 2019?

As discussed last month, Project Faerthale is underway. Now that we are back from holidays we are finalizing our scope for that release and setting some internal goal dates. Ross, our lead animator, is already working hard on new animations and the rest of the art team is developing the art for Project Faerthale and beyond. Programming is adding more to the existing tools like the ability editor,, planning out some new tools for a more robust and streamlined Perception System and adding more features, systems, stability and bug-squashing to the existing client. Design is fleshing out some systems and encounter designs and tech is looking into more robust back-end features.

Project Faerthale is the biggest release we’ve ever done, so it will take some time and we appreciate your patience and continued support as we approach this milestone! You can also look forward to a new website, lots of new videos, content and a few surprises along the way. So buckle in, grab your Codex and get ready for an incredible year!

Ben Dean

Producer, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen