Chronicles of Elyria

Chronicles of Elyria is an upcoming video game developed by Soulbound Studios. It is the studio's first game, aiming to reinvent several mechanics within the massively multiplayer online role-playing game genre.
Gameplay
Chronicles of Elyria takes place in the fictional world of Elyria, and sees players take control of a soul. Each soul is tied to a player's account, and one is obtained upon purchase of the game (though more can be bought with real world currency). When creating your character, a player must choose a family to be born into, to which they have a spiritual connection with. Starting in your late teens, all in-game characters, both player controlled and NPCs, will age. Each ingame year is four real life days, with each real life day being one ingame season. Because of this, players may encounter several generations of NPC families over the course of the game.
The game also features permadeath. There are typically three states of dying in Chronicles of Elyria: unconsciousness, which is reached when a player's health drops to zero, sees the player's screen blackened for several minutes, unable to move or speak. The second state is when a coup de grace is performed on an unconscious person, sending the receiving player to the Astral Planes, where they must try to make their way back to their body within a certain amount of time. The third is when a player cannot reach their body on time, and the character is permanently deleted. Play characters last on average for 10-14 months, as players can also die of old age. Once dead, the player may create a new character with the same soul, essentially creating ingame reincarnation. Skills learned in a past life are developed faster, so if a player was a master swordsman in a previous life, the soul will learn sword-skills significantly faster.
A ten year story is planned by the developers with an innovative quest system. Each server follows the main story of the game, which can radically change depending on the player's' actions. Each player is also given a role in the story at birth, creating an exclusive quest that may activate at any time during a player's life, even going completely ignored, the story adjusting accordingly.
Development
Ideas for Chronicles of Elyria have been in development for over a decade by the game's lead designer and creative director, Jeremy Walsh. Eventually, him and his family invested several thousand dollars to found Souldbound Studios and make the game a reality, alongside several other designers who joined the studio, officially beginning production in late 2015. The project was eventually put onto kickstarter in May of 2016, asking for a goal of $900,000, which was met in the same month. Currently the game has over $1,000,000 in funding, surpassing the goal by over $100,000

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu