Chronicles of Elyria developer Soulbound Studios announced a partnership with SpatialOS developer Improbable today. According to Soulbound Studios’ press release from earlier today:
SpatialOS is a distributed operating system that enables developers to create simulations inhabited by millions of complex entities, and allows game worlds and other simulated environments to run seamlessly on thousands of servers in the cloud. In order to create the dynamic and immersive MMORPG experience in Chronicles of Elyria, Soulbound Studios will be building their Soulborn Engine and the rest of the Chronicles of Elyria back-end on the foundation of SpatialOS. With support for load balancing, recovery, replication, and cross-process communication, SpatialOS provides the core fabric and infrastructure required for Chronicles of Elyria.
SpatialOS has been gathering a lot of attention recently and has been adopted by other studios as well. Holy Fire Games’ Forsaken Legends, Entrada Interactive’s Rebel Horizons, and Bossa Studios’ Worlds Adrift all make use of Improbable’s SpatialOS.
So, why are so many newer MMOs jumping onto this platform? SpatialOS has several key features that make it very, very enticing for MMO developers — from massive, persistent single-shard worlds to living, breathing entities (NPCs, flora, fauna, players, etc) with specific needs and behaviors like hunger, hunting, foraging, and more that they react to in real-time. SpatialOS takes a ton of the leg work out of standing up a new universe for MMO developers. In the case of Worlds Adrift, they were able to build their world with a team of only five.
You can read more about SpatialOS here.