This Just Isn't Good: Pantheon 247 Is Escape From Tarkov In An MMO Shell And Is Still Unsure Of Monetization

A week after I covered my concerns with Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen's apparent 247 game mode and potential monetization, the team at Visionary Realms held to their word and dropped the October Producer's Letter and a video (below) showing the public exactly what 247 delivers.

Short version: Leaks confirmed.

The video itself, however, doesn't deliver in my opinion. Followers of Pantheon know its systems and look (even with the art change) are on the "older" side of MMO tech. We're ok with that. This video isn't exciting in any way. It's solo gameplay of a few low level mob fights and walking to a portal. Show a GROUP of players, show interesting content or combat in the world. You are trying to entice people to pay (more on that later) to try this. I simply wouldn't based on the video alone.

Is it the MMORPG? No, of course not and we pretty much knew that was the case judging by the leaks covered in my previous piece.

Pantheon 247 is more akin to Escape from Tarkov or PUBG, except in an MMO shell rather than a shooter shell. You have a core hub where you can select quests from factions, store your loot, pick your skills, and more. When it's "go time", hop into a portal to Terminus and explore the world, complete your quests, level up, get loot, and attempt to make it to extraction within certain time limits.

Your journey comes in a PvE or PvP variety (your choice), and you can go it alone or group up with friends before porting to the open world.

Die in Terminus and you lose your stuff. Make it back home and you level up, get better skills and gear, and gain reputation with the factions you've completed quests for in Terminus.

Here's the thing: none of this is "bad" by itself. The mode could be fun and the gameplay loop has certainly spawned some long-running games. That's not my issue, and probably not your issue if you're a Pantheon fan/follower/supporter. Hell, Visionary Realms is even considering 247 to be a potential PvP mode in the MMORPG itself if the feedback works out in their favor.

The concern goes back to 2 key questions:

First, how does 247 help the MMORPG that players have waited on forever?

From the team's perspective the "for sure" help is in data gathering of player behavior and system performance. The "might help" items fall into two buckets. There's the potential for things developed in support of 247 to also help in the MMORPG, but then there's also the monetization of 247.

Will 247 be sold as a stand alone product? "Maybe" says the Producer's Letter. They're still having a little think on that one.

However, 247 has been added to the "Scion of the Black Rose" pledge pack and above, meaning if you're willing to shell out at least $750 (holy shit!), you can try 247 now. Later this year, 247 access comes to any pack that contains alpha access (this starts at the $250 Pathfinder's Pledge pack).

Visionary Realms, and many followers, feel this project needs to speed up and the hope is that funding from 247 (or a potential investor seeing 247) will allow that increase in speed.

Second, what are potential negative impacts to the MMORPG by sinking time and resources into 247?

This gets a little nebulous. Obviously taking any resources off of the MMORPG version could be a detriment. However, with crowdfunding slowing, not making enough money to continue work would be even worse. According to the Producer's Letter, only about 5-10% of the content and fixes made for 247 have no use in the MMORPG. The projects are designed to work in tandem.

The concern though is what if 247 doesn't actually bring in any additional funding...what happens then? According to the team, if 247 doesn't bring in enough revenue to support both itself AND the MMORPG, then it simply isn't worth pursing. In other words, it's a gamble. It may be a calculated one, but it's still a gamble.

(SIDEBAR: I keep seeing the "weren't they fully funded" question flying about. Short answer: kinda, but no. After receiving additional funding from a private party, the team's January 2021 Letter confirmed this was not "full funding." While the team HAS said things previously like "enough funding to release", they've expressed in those same conversations that that would be a slow release schedule that wouldn't have the full feature set or polish they would want upon release. So release funded? Kinda..."fully funded", nope.)

While the team says it isn't time to "panic" even though crowdfunding has slowed, ANY percentage of work that doesn't add to the MMORPG's development is work and time lost if 247 doesn't add funding the team seems to need.

The MMO's testing is ceasing until next year and web content for the MMO will slow as well, although the monthly Producer's Letters will continue. The team will also be holding a Discord Q&A later today at 6:30 PM PST in the "247 Public Q&A Stage" channel, but I can't imagine some of the more pressing questions would be answered there if they weren't answered in this posted letter. The team did tweet about "addressing questions head-on", so I'll keep an eye on the chat and you should, too.

My final take on things?

Yes, of course 247 is going to be monetized in some additional way. It pretty much has to be or there's no real point. If the team has decided to spend resources on it, it has to be monetized. That means they need funding and I don't know if I personally buy the "it just speeds things up, don't panic" mentality the post tries to portray. I hope I'm wrong there, but I'm not so sure right now.

As for an "investor"...this is a bit murky for me. There's really only two potential outcomes on that front, right?

First, the worst case is that no investor likes what they see enough in 247 to invest (also meaning that 247 has to be monetized to get ANY potential funding "gain" or it has to go away and time and resources were wasted), or an investor likes what they see enough to invest. What are they investing in though? Investors that wanted to invest in the MMO likely already did so. Showing investors a totally separate "game" may entice an investor to invest in that game...it doesn't mean they want to invest in the entire project, MMO and all.

This thing is, we've seen this before. As just one example, that isn't EverQuest Next, Ashes of Creation: Apocalypse was a battle royale spinoff of Ashes of Creation that was supposed to be a mode used to gather data, too. Sound familiar? At least that one was F2P though with a cash shop for additional funding. We all know how that ended.

Of course, there's also the consideration many have, albeit the most pessimistic of viewpoints, that 247 is just a way to get "something" released to avoid any potential legal issues with a full blown cancellation. I don't know if I'm quite on that train yet, but it's certainly a viewpoint worth considering.

Is 247 a "good" thing for the MMORPG? I don't think so. I think it's a gamble to try and get some funding and the only time you really want to gamble on funding is when you feel like you have to because there's no other options. That's not the situation I want to see the MMORPG in and I hope I'm wrong, but I've seen this playbook before.