‘Untamed Isles’ Development On Indefinite Hiatus As Devs Lose Bet On Crypto

The cryptocurrency industry, with its troop of influencers incessantly talking about how they got rich quick out of their investments, is getting massive attention, especially from those who wish to make it big fast. One gaming studio, that hoped to raise more funds to support its game development is the latest casualty of the market crash, and with its crypto holdings turned to virtually zilch, its upcoming game dubbed “Untamed Isles” is currently in limbo.

“Untamed Isles” is an online RPG from the New Zealand-based game studio Phat Loot Studios that earned massive support from a crowdfunding site and is considered one of the many Kickstarter success stories after it raised $580,000 in 2021. Backed with high hopes and a meager budget, the studio quickly grew to more than 70 people, with the game set to roll out on October 6 officially.

While the 3,052 optimistic backers of the crowdfunded project anticipate the game’s release less than a month from now and probably hoping the studio keeps its promise of return, Phat Loot Studios released a disappointing announcement. “Untamed Isles goes into hiatus,” read the title of the blog post that Phat Loot Studios CEO Joshua Grant released a few days ago.

“We have to pause the development of Untamed Isles and put the project on hold. With a heavy heart, we made this decision, and we understand our amazing community will be shocked reading this,” the post continued.

The CEO explained that the high cost of development depleted its stash fast, and they “leaned into the crypto market and expanded rapidly off the back of the positive interest.” Unfortunately, the crypto market has not been doing well since the start of the year. “When the crash came, we ended up heavily exposed with too short of a runway,” Grant noted.

“The economic landscape has changed dramatically both generally and specifically for cryptocurrency, and we are not confident in the current market. We ran out of financial resources, and we can’t carry on the development at this moment,” the executive disclosed.

For Kickstarter backers, the post only means that there’s no money left, and they will not receive any refunds anytime soon or ever, as suggested by Grant in an interview following the hiatus announcement. As for those who pre-ordered the game, “Untamed Isles” said, “all pre-orders will be refunded, and we will contact customers via the email address they provided on purchase.”

The CEO believes in “Untamed Isles” and noted that it has “a great game design that could stand on its own two feet.” However, with the money gone, the team relies on the performance of the cryptocurrency market to resume the game’s development.

“But until the crypto situation is resolved – and we’re confident it will be at some stage – then we have to hibernate development on this project,” Grant said. Many who supported the game on the crowdfunding site were mad about what happened.

One crowdfunder said, “Stupid team! We invested in [the] game, not in the crypto, if we want to invest in crypto, we can do it with ourselves. I DEMAND A REFUND!” And another one saying, “Really disappointed by this- I put money into funding this game to back a game, not to throw money into the crypto market. Gambling with our money is pretty shady, and now you can’t make the game because of it. Refund us.”

But as to when exactly the resumption of development would take place is still up in the air, with Grant hoping to see fans and Kickstarter backers “at the Isles one day.” An FAQ published by the team revealed the steps it is taking and would take following the announcement.

“We will be keeping on a small team to work on our smaller titles to release as soon as possible. We are changing the direction slightly to focus on smaller deliverables and build the studios back to a point where we can confidently continue the Untamed Isles project,” the studio claimed. “Our passion for developing video games has not been lost, and we aim to release titles in the future as we are in the position to,” it added.