Like many small studios these days Epitome P.S.A. took to kickstarter to see if there was any interest in their project, unlike many small studios these days – they smashed it!

In just 44 hours, they had the project – Epitome – fully funded, perhaps far surpassing initial backing expectations, but it’s easy to see why, when they already had so many core mechanics in place and playable.

I haven’t pledged myself yet, but I will be doing so. Pledging on Kickstarter gives access to the Pre-Alpha playtests that are open 24/7. These aren’t for the faint hearted though, being pre-alpha means not all systems may be polished, and there may well be bugs, but you help along the way for a successful launch.

What makes Epitome so special?

Well, they claim to do things differently from the big AAA studios – no Pay-To-Win, their own server tech that can handle up to 30,000 players in a single server, AI-powered NPC’s and AI quests, and community driven development. See for yourself below.

It’s the community driven development that makes me curious the most, this is a system that has worked well for other studios, like Slavic Magic have done with Manor Lords, where every major decision is decided on a poll on Discord, and Jagex with Old School Runescape, which is doing exceptionally well despite it’s age. Hopefully Epitome will incorporate a voting system in game, to allow all active players to vote on what they’d like to see next.

What about the AI? it’s a touchy subject…

It is, but primarily around generative AI and artists rights. Epitome utilises AI in a similar fashion to Where Winds Meet – giving NPCs life, a personality, and you’ll have the ability to speak to them via voice chat. The NPCs will remember past conversations, and give you quests where you can negotiate rewards.

Anything that can make the world feel just a little bit more alive, is a win in my book.

What else is there to look forward to?

I’ve watched some gameplay, it holds modern graphics well, but has a somewhat nostalgic feel to it – like logging into Runescape for your first time back in 2003, it has a magical wonder about it. It may be the combat, it may be the enemies, but something just seems to hit right.

Some insight into how they listen to the fanbase – playtime. Initially windowed playtests were the plan, but the players craved more, even for a pre-alpha build, players needed more! So, they opened the servers to run 24/7 for EU and US (they may have changed this by the time of publishing – please check).

At the time of writing, Kickstarter has been a huge success, with almost £400,000 raised of the initial £75k goal, across more than 14,000 backers. Which shows players aren’t just interested in Epitome – they believe in it – they’re invested. With pledges starting as low as 10 euros, I can understand why people are keen to hop in, and help out. With having done many paytests, both paid and free, I can see it’s not for everyone, but everyone that does join in, and write those bug reports, offers suggestions, they all help to create a clean game ready for release, and they get to influence some of the decision making process along the way.

The pre-alpha currently has an entire world to discover, along with 2 cities, character customisation, 4 classes, with two paths for each class, quests, tons of monsters, teleportation, friends and parties, chat, morality systems… the list goes on! But they’re no where near finished, the dreams are big for Epitome! Plans are already in the works to release 8 more worlds, world bosses, dynamic world events, autonomous AI characters, guild & faction warfare, territory control, player housing, pets, polymorphing, mining, fishing and mounts! And we’re still not done, there is loads that we didn’t list, because, well if you want to find out you’ll have to play.

Now is the perfect time for Epitome to start building it’s reputation, really drive home the development, with New World’s servers closing in January 2027, it’s going to leave a large gap, and that gap will need filling.

There are a few MMO’s releasing in 2026, but none look quite like Epitome, so there’s no better time for something like Epitome to come along and give us what’s been missing from MMO’s for years – exploration and adventure!

If you want to support this project, you can go ahead and back them on Kickstarter here until 1st March and start playing immediately. Don’t forget to wishlist on Steam!

While Epitome is already hands on for early backers, it joins a packed calendar of highly anticipated releases this year, including titles like Marathon.