Game News Chaos Chronicles resurrected? Resurfaces on Steam as "Century of Chaos"

[Infinitron]

Tags: bitComposer; Century of Chaos; Chaos Chronicles

It's been over a year since the development of Chaos Chronicles, the promising-looking isometric tactical RPG from the now-defunct German developer Coreplay, came to what appeared to be a sad conclusion, as documented here on the Codex in a series of news posts and interviews. Since then we've heard nothing about the game's fate from its publisher, bitComposer, and after the removal of its store page from Steam it was assumed to be permanently dead, although it was never officially cancelled.

It now appears, however, that Chaos Chronicles might not be gone for good. You see, when a game is taken off of Steam, its community page always remains behind, and it remains registered in Steam's database, which is publicly browsable on the outstanding SteamDB site. Yesterday, eagle-eyed Codexer Sinatar noticed that Chaos Chronicles' entry in the database had been surreptitiously renamed to Century of Chaos, as was its community page.

​

What could this mean? Some people suggested that bitComposer might simply be reusing Chaos Chronicles' entry on Steam for a different game, but the similarity of the names, plus the fact that they had absolutely no reason not to create a new one, makes that highly unlikely. No, in all likelihood, bitComposer have rebooted or are attempting to reboot the development of Chaos Chronicles, under a different developer. Who that developer is - and whether they can even pull this off - remains to be seen.

In related news, the people behind Coreplay, including the Codex's own Peter "HobGoblin42" Ohlmann, have reorganized under a new studio - Grimlore Games, a subsidiary of the Austrian publisher Nordic Games. Their first game will be Spellforce 3, a sequel to the Spellforce RTS series originally created by Phenomic Games, another German developer that was later swallowed up and destroyed by Electronic Arts, after being forced to create F2P browser games for a few years.

Man, the German game development scene sure is rough.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

CYCLOPEAN NEXT


Please.

 

[Delterius]

In before

 

[:Flash:]

"Grimlore Games"? I can recommend a reputable lawyer, based on Broadway, NY.

 

[whitepony]

Holy fuck, I wish it was true

 

[jdinatale]

I want to be leaf.

 

[AbounI]

I want to believe Spellforce 3 is not the secret projet of Grimlore
I want to believe they will reveal soon this Century of Chaos

 

[Davaris]

Chaos Chronicles is a far better name.

 

[Lerk]

With isometric turn-based retro RPGs like Div:OS and WL2 doing well, I can't be the only one not entirely surprised by this prospect? Wasn't the game like 90% complete before it was canned?

 

[StaticSpine]

 

[Jaesun]

Didn't the Chaos Chronicles developers pay for a majority of the development of this game (they got a loan IIRC from the Govenment). And then bitComposer sweeps in and is now going to publish this under a different name, after all the hard work and time the Chaos Chronicles developers (using a new developer)?

Though I am not sure if bitComposer also paid some money into this project as well?

 

[AbounI]

After all, it wouldn't be the first time the title has changed.Before Chaos Chronicles, it was called Myth of Glory, and was originally designed as a diablo like

 

[;]

Hobgob also recently commented that there was nothing new wih CC, so I'm guessing they're not involved and this may be a cashgrab by BC (muh sunken cost)

 

[Zed]

I can't imagine a game less interesting than another entry in a shitty shovelware RTS series. Hope they eventually end up working on RPGs again.

 

[Roguey]

CYCLOPEAN NEXT


Please.

http://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.ph...ity-crpg-card-game.93553/page-10#post-3435313

No thanks.

 

[Morality Games]

... what specifically about this project makes it so much more remarkable than any of the made or planned turn-based RPGs?

Expeditions: Conquistador
Shadowrun Returns + Dragonfall
Blackguards + II
Divinity: Original Sin
Wasteland II
The Age of Decadence
Torment: Tides of Numenera
Underrail
Seven Dragon Saga

 

[Delterius]

... what specifically about this project makes it so much more remarkable than any of the made or planned turn-based RPGs?

Expeditions: Conquistador
Shadowrun Returns + Dragonfall
Blackguards + II
Divinity: Original Sin
Wasteland II
The Age of Decadence
Torment: Tides of Numenera
Underrail
Seven Dragon Saga

They opened a forum here and became our collective waifu.

 

[tuluse]

... what specifically about this project makes it so much more remarkable than any of the made or planned turn-based RPGs?

Expeditions: Conquistador
Shadowrun Returns + Dragonfall
Blackguards + II
Divinity: Original Sin
Wasteland II
The Age of Decadence
Torment: Tides of Numenera
Underrail
Seven Dragon Saga

It was supposed to be a traditional dungeon diver using D&D OGL rules.

Lots of people like D&D, and lots of people like traditional dungeon divers.

 

[Neckbeard Shitlord]

Knights of the chalice made with a big budget is about as good as it could get

 

[cherry blossom]

Chaos Chronicles was going to be an open world TB RPG with a hexagonal grid using the OGL3.5. They had stellar art direction, solid updates about the game and a decent trailer. The game seemed to be going somewhere, making progress at a time when there was hardly a good recent RPG anywhere and the quality of their updates gave us all hope, even though their previous game, JA:BIA was an unplayable fucking mess (bitComposer's orders, apparently).

Then CorePlay got into a dispute with bitComposer when they decided to buy their way out of a publishing deal they had signed with bitComposer (because they previously got sort of screwed over by bitComposer on JA:BIA so they wanted to actually earn something for their work this time around which, apparently, wasn't going to be possible with their deal, AND CorePlayer had paid for development out of their own pockets + a public loan fund up until they signed into a deal with bitComposer), except they tried to do that after receiving funding from bitComposer, so bitComposer ultimately rejected the offer for understandable reasons and the project sunk. Now, according to HobGob's account, bitComposer at first agreed but then inexplicably changed their mind without prior notification, leaving them out to dry. According to bitComposer, they mutually scheduled a meeting to discuss and resolve the issue but CorePlay never even showed up. According to HobGob, the reason they didn't show up was because they were weary of bitComposer demanding stuff (apparently, you have no right to demand anything when you fund an indie developer to help make their game who then, right or wrong, decides to take you out of the picture). According to bitComposer, all of this started when the biggest shares of CorePlay changed hands to a lawyer pursuing an agenda for profit. My opinion, bitComposer obviously isn't the guardian angel protector supporter and defender of the little guy but CorePlay sort of dragged themselves into the position with a poor handling of matters.

The linked thread has it all from both sides.

Anyway, new name sucks and I doubt an entirely different team will manage to do anything good with a half-baked cake. I hope it ends up burning bitComposer.

 

[Shannow]

Nice summary.

bC are also behaving like little Adolf EA. Only the other way around. They killed their cash cow before they started milking her
And it seems they only now realize they had a cash cow to begin with

Ah well, somehow I doubt that bC will release a good game with this (IF that is even what they're trying). Too many cooks, a shitty publisher and all...

 

[thesheeep]

I do not have much faith in games being continued by other developers. Usually there are very few (2 or 3 at most, I would say) people that define the vision of the game and make sure the others follow that vision. If these guys are gone, well... That rarely turns out well.
Just out of interest, can anyone name an example in which it did turn out well?

But the developers working on Spellforce 3 is pretty cool! Spellforce 2 was really a good game and that RPG/RTS mix has lots of untapped potential. And of course lots of potential to screw it up.

 

[Haba]

Wasn't the game like 90% complete before it was canned?

In software development the last 10% will take 90% of the time, so...

 

[Western]

HobGoblin42

I imagine he's aware of this thread, but just in case.

 

[HobGoblin42]

HobGoblin42

I imagine he's aware of this thread, but just in case.

Chaos Chronicles resurrected?

Answer: no

Already in July/August this year, bitComposer released the majority of its staff and two former members of the bc board started a new company called 2-tainment (btw, this company has a turn-based blobber in their portofolio: http://www.2-tainment.com/portfolio-view/nights-candles-legends-of-candlewind/ )

I strongly doubt, that somebody will resurrect the game CC anytime soon since the legal situation is still in full limbo.