It’s been a while since we’ve bothered to post any news about Shroud of the Avatar on the Codex, mostly because there has been precious little newsworthy development on that game in quite some time (asset drops and additional player housing lots manifestly do not count). And to be fair, I’m not entirely certain that this news about Chris Spears and Starr Long’s newest studio & game project is particularly newsworthy; I’m rather more certain that it won’t be of interest to most Ultima fans. Be that as it may, MassivelyOP has revealed that Spears has formed a new studio – Pangaea – which has been developing something called Project Rise:

The studio is called Pangaea and was apparently co-founded by both Spears and developer Joe Scott. The game itself being developed is Project Rise, a “rogue-like battle royale that uses procedural generation to ensure that the map, and the challenges that lie within it, are never the same,” according to the video description. An associated dev blog also calls the game session-based with PvPvE – a title where “[e]very session is completely unique and player decisions impact the game for everyone.”

As for the AI tool use, the video sees Scott and Spears joined by Starr Long, who is named as Project Rise’s executive producer (Pangaea’s studio website calls him a “stealth executive producer”), generate “lots and lots of dungeons” through procedural generation and unspecified third-party AI tools.

The presentation and the video description also say the quiet part out loud regarding the use of AI, arguing these decisions are purely about cutting costs associated with hiring humans…

The video in question can be viewed in full at Vimeo, at least as of this writing. If you’re curious about Pangaea, the studio’s website is not going to do much to satisfy you; it’s sparse on details at the moment, though there is a short blog post about what Project Rise is and isn’t, and a weirdly cryptic about/staff page. There’s also what purports to be a sign-up form for Project Rise, though I gather there’s some debate about whether it’s anything more than a placeholder at this time.