The money has since run out and he’s now been pouring his family’s assets into the studio for the second time since development started on the game. According to Walsh, he was even forced to take out a Paycheck Protection Program loan during the pandemic which allowed him to continue working on Chronicles of Elyria from 2020 to 2021. He also maintains that there’s no “giant stockpile of cash” leftover from the crowdfunding campaigns as backers claim. Because of this, Alpha 2 has been delayed indefinitely while Walsh tries to keep the studio afloat. The latest update, however, brings grim tidings of the game’s future as Walsh reveals that the project will soon be running out of money due to the sudden rise in hosting and operating costs. Since December 2020, Walsh has been releasing regular developer updates and touting ongoing improvements to Chronicles of Elyria and its spinoff Kingdoms of Elyria. The backers responded by filing a class action lawsuit against Soulbound Studios and its co-founder Jeromy Walsh, which he responded to by saying that the game was still in development albeit with a smaller team which consisted of himself and a few remote workers. The studio laid off all its staff shortly after and abruptly announced its closure in March 2020 when funding ran out, ceasing all communications with its backers and refusing to give refunds. Three years after the game’s intended launch, Soulbound Studios managed to release a playable demo that ended up being a huge disappointment. Soulbound Studios managed to raise $1.3 million during its initial crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter and an additional $7.7 million of additional funding from subsequent crowdfunding campaigns on their website. At the start, it looked like all was going well with the ambitious MMORPG’s development. Chronicles of Elyria’s development history has been an incredibly messy one.
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