It’s been a bleak week for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning developer 38 Studios and founder Curt Schilling. The company secured a $75 million loan from the state of Rhode Island in 2010 on the hopes Amalur would turn into to job-creating gold mine. Despite quality reviews it failed to do either, and a very public legal tussling has ensued as Schilling, the former world-champion Red Sox pitcher, tries to squeeze out of his messiest jam yet.
Contrary to initial fears – and as a much-needed glimmer of hope for the company – it was announced by Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee that 38 Studios would not be defaulting on the $1.125 million loan payment that was due May 1st. A check to the state cleared Friday after a string of “emergency meetings” between Schilling and Rhode Island officials. The studio is also eligible for additional tax credits thanks to the terms of the original loan.
But the day’s events were just getting started.
The governor went on to cite upcoming dues for the studio amounting to $2.6 million in November and $12.6 million in 2013 – implying that solvency is, at best, a tenuous condition. And so when prompted on how 38 Studios might raise the necessary capital to foot the rest of the bill (Chafee had already declared that the Commonwealth wouldn’t be chipping in), he casually let slip that the developer’s still-highly-secret Amalur-based MMO, Project Copernicus, was releasing in June of 2013.
For a studio that, according to WPRI, has been unable to pay its own employees this week, we have trouble imagining how a full-scale Kingdoms of Amalur MMO will be releasing any time soon. (It’s been in the works for almost six years, but even if it was finished how would they pay for post-development expenses like marketing and distribution?) That said, it’s entirely possible Chafee caught wind of a tentative date during the meetings and didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to share. It wasn’t long after that the below trailer sprouted up on the Internet, and 38 would later confirm that it was released on their accord.
As our own Jeff Schille noted in Game Rant’s Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning review, the world 38 Studios and subsidiary Big Huge Games has created is nothing short of gorgeous. The disconcerting part about Project Copernicus, however, is that 38 Studios has essentially turned into a house of cards: one more missed payment or failure to raise cash and they could fold – dragging Amalur’s statuesque architecture and luscious scenery down with them.
We wish 38 Studios the best and hope Project Copernicus can live up to our expectations and more. But how much faith gamers can continue having in either one is still up in the air, a hanging breaking ball Schilling was hoping to keep down.
Project Copernicus, according to Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee, is due out in June of 2013.
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Follow Brian on Twitter @Brian_Sipple.
Source: WPRI
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Cool environments… but meaningless without new and awesome gameplay.
how can you judge something when they haven’t even shown anything besides some areas ?
i really hope the combat is the same as amalurs, that will create some epic pvp moments and boss fights
Rob’s saying that the cool environments will be meaningless if the game doesn’t have new and awesome gameplay. He’s not judging the game right now other than the environments in this trailer, which he said are cool.
Looks nice but after playing Kingdoms of Amalur they are going to have to really wow me to try this.
more like Project Crappy Graphics..lmfao sry couldn’t resist
Better than CoD’s.
Really? Is COD that important to you that you need to bring it up here? Never mind I see a Battlefield icon in your name. So what is it now? Hipster to hate COD but not Battlefield? There both crap.
How on Earth did you get the impression that CoD is important to me? I simply stated that the graphics in the trailer above for the KoA MMO are better than CoD’s graphcis. I was actually being negative toward CoD, so I have absolutely no idea how you managed to think it is important to me.
lol idk..the graphics on CoD and this are like the equavelant of each other…although they both look better than Skyrim and have much better animations than Skyrim also ^^
Seriously Abu? Skyrim’s graphics and KoA’s graphics are definitely better than CoD’s graphics. Skyrim’s graphics and KoA’s graphics have different color palettes, but I’d say they’re about equal overall. As for the animations, they’re not very good in any of those three games.
Naa bro, trust me, CoD’s animations and graphics are much better than Skyrim’s, take my word for that
Just look at some footage or play the game; the animations and smooth and sometimes the graphics look really good, specially if you just stare at the characters and watch em with their idle animations. Certainly it isn’t as badass as Battlefield’s, but if you compare it with Skyrim and KoA it’s much more fluent animations and graphics are much better and reallistic too 
I would argue that the animations in CoD are equivalent to those in KoA and Skyrim. None are dynamic (like the animations in Max Payne 3), they’re all on a set trajectory. Dynamism is the key to good animations. Sure, fluidity is important as well, but I’d argue that the animations in CoD and Skyrim are equally fluid, with KoA’s animations a notch above them. After all, neither CoD nor Skyrim focus on third person animations, while KoA does. Furthermore, you certainly must agree that the facial animations in all three games are lacking. There is no denying that.
In terms of Fluidity, I think CoD and KoA are on par, you notice this with all the nice and smooth gestures of the swords and all in KoA and transitioning from various stances and throwing equipment and etc(from a 3rd point of view) in CoD. Skyrim lacks fluidity much due to it having such a stiff animation set, probably as bad as Mass Effect’s. But no, CoD’s facial animations are really good compared to KoA, ME, and Skyrim, they can be seen just by that new game mode trailer they showed, u could see close up face shots, looked really nice, and also in the campaigns, the facial work is quite breathtaking, while in Skyrim you get a few stiff facial bone motions, KoA they sorta sit blinking at you, and ME where they all have DOWNs and bobbly head while saying anything mixed with weird, blocky, facial animations.
Now that I think about, KoA’s animations are better than CoD’s. CoD’s animations are much too stiff. As the for facial animations, they may be slightly improved in the trailer for Black Ops II, but still not very good. The facial/mouth movement is too stiff. And you say the facial work is breathtaking?! I don’t think you’re a very good judge of graphics or animations. L.A. Noire’s facial work is breathtaking. CoD’s facial work is minimal. There are many games out there that have better facial animations than CoD’s.
Sure L.A. Noir’s technology used was breathtaking and the facial animations definitely looked good, though a bit blurry, specially near the mouth area. As for the CoD’s facial animations, I was referring when you just stare at an idle dude standing there, you see him look around and make faces and blink and etc(judging from mw2). I think I’d agree with you on KoA’s animations being more smooth than CoD’s…the whole snappy movement comes to mind…the transitioning between animations sure ain’t smooth in CoD..almost as bad as Skyrim’s combat animations…atleast for the flow, you’re right.
You just contradicted yourself with that comment. Also, L.A. Noire’s facial animations are more than “good.” They are amazing! Never before in a video game have we seen facial animations of that quality. L.A. Noire was the first game to use MotionScan facial capture. Sure, certain (but small) parts of the game’s faces look a bit blurry, but that doesn’t take away from the high quality facial animations. As for COD, when you just stare at the guy idling in the menu, you’re right. It doesn’t seem bad because he blinks and stuff. But he’s also not in action and not saying anything. Also, the graphics and character models are just bad.
compared to Battlefield, Crysis, Uncharted, L.A. Noir its bad. Compared to KoA and Skyrim the faces are good. And lol I still can’t take in that you said that that crap of graphics Skyrim has is better than CoD’s…trust me here, compared to Skyrim’s animations and graphics, CoD’s is better, least it flows a bit more, graphics, least character models, are better than Skyrim’s and the animations aren’t AS blocky as Skyrim’s either.
go play your blurry textured AC revelations noob, this is an mmo meaning they have to balance visuals with everything else, you very rarely see a mmo with top notch graphics and hardcore gameplay mechanics (just take a look at WoW or KoToR).
No wonder I don’t play either of those..WoW didn’t last me more than 30 mins during the EXTENDED 14 day trial I got years ago when it just started getting popular. That kinda of blurry textured, crappy graphics and etc just aren’t my sorta thing. Oh and btw what did you mean WoW doesn’t have “harcore gameplay mechanics”??? It’s the most Hardcore Point-n-Click game I’ve seen…which is so hardcore it makes hardcore nerds pay more than $500 to play this game yearly…lawl if that’s not hardcore, than idk what is, friend ^^
Abu, I’m pretty sure jwalka meant that WoW does have hardcore gameplay mechanics, but it doesn’t have top notch graphics. You misunderstood what he said.
I was taking a lil jab at point-n-click games, I got carried away xD If Assassin’s Creed, which is an open world game and came out back in 2007 has such amazing graphics and animations and gameplay and storyline and etc, why can’t a game now 5 years after be atleast 70% as good looking and etc as AC1? :S I understand its an MMO and is pretty huge, but you can always have better graphics in these..just look at TERA online, certainly cartoony graphics but really slick looking and awesome gameplay and animations….
Obviously 38 Studios doesn’t have enough money to build a new engine for a MMO.
Haha, true that ^^ What engine DID they use then?
I’m guessing the Big Huge Engine (with Havok physics, of course), which is what they used for Reckoning.
Ahh, the Havoc Engine explains some of those smooth swipes with the swords and some of those smooth lush and flora round the forest and some particle effects also…but damn, the characters looked quite blocky and too cartoony for my taste :S
Yeah, some of the environments in Reckoning look pretty good, but the character models aren’t the greatest.
Vaporware. This will never see the light of day. Sorry, but 38 Studios does not have enough money to develop this through another year. I noticed on Curt Schilling’s twitter that he is begging people to make the trailer go viral. He’s tweeted the same message and trailer like 9 times over the past day. That is a sign of man who is completely desperate. I sure hope that Curt Schilling didn’t invest all his money into 38 Studios.
yeah and what a coincidence that the trailer comes out so soon after the issue rose. i dont hate the studio in fact i think they’re very enthusiastic people when it comes to game dev, but i fear they might go under by the end of the year
Another MMO doomed to fail. If it even makes it to market that is. Hopefully it does and it at least makes back the money they owe.