The MMO Valorbound is emerging from obscurity and has big news to share. We summarize for you the status of the project at the beginning of 2026.
Does the name Valorbound ring a bell? If not, you’ll probably have to get in line, because the MMORPG was announced half a decade ago, but shortly after its unveiling in 2021, virtually nothing more was heard about the one-man project – until now.
Valorbound? What was that again?
The MMO was announced with many ambitious goals. The focus is to be on PvP and survival, and the following features were promised:
- Open world with many different races
- 27 classes with combination options, resulting in a total of over 300 class variants.
- Survival features, which mean that you can’t just consume healing potions, but also have to take care of wounds, bleeding, and broken bones.
- Attributes are not improved by your level, but by your equipment. This means that it doesn’t matter whether a player has invested 10, 100, or 1,000 hours.
- PvP loot: When you kill a player, you can take all of their equipment. To avoid frustration, the developer wants to ensure a fair concept.
Privacy comes first
On Valorbound’s official Discord server of Valorbound, the developer behind the pseudonym TeamScionica addressed fans with a new status update right at the start of the year. In it, he writes, among other things, about what’s going on in his real life:
Is [the project] dead? No. […] And boy, have I been busy. [The development of] Valorbound is not my regular job. I’ve been promoted twice there and now I have a lot to do. I bought a new house, family life and everything else left me in a state of burnout before I even started [the development environment] Unity.
We would love to show you a video of Valorbound at this point, but apart from a few 30-second clips on YouTube, there is no moving image material available yet. Instead, we would like to point you to the upcoming MMO highlights of 2026:
New graphics bring a breath of fresh air
The most important news in the new update is the switch to a current version of the Unity engine. Until now, Unity2022 was used, but now Unity 6.3 is working under the hood and a more modern rendering pipeline ensures a more contemporary display.
The result is significantly prettier areas and more detailed character models compared to the old graphics (see screenshots above):
Will the game ever be released?
Despite the encouraging update, fans should not expect an early release. The developer goes on to say that the network code, which is crucial for an MMO, is not yet satisfactory and that he is also looking to make changes here.
However, it could take a few more months before he decides on a framework:
So, as things stand, we’re taking a break and waiting for the necessary tools to become available. I’m still working on smaller things here and there, but I need a solid foundation.
He concludes his statement with the optimistic words “More to come.” What does that tell us? Well, that Valorbound won’t be released this year. Nevertheless, you can already register for early access, which will probably also start in the distant future.
How do you feel about such ambitious one-person projects? Do you think it’s realistic that Valorbound will ever be released in a playable state with the intended scope? Or do you shake your head and wonder how on earth someone can set such high goals? Feel free to write us in the comments what you think about all this!
