JamesGoblin broke this news in a comment last week, but as I mentioned in my reply to him, there was an official press release about it. At any rate, here’s the news: ArtCraft Entertainment has signed an agreement with Travian Games to distribute Crowfall internationally:

Independent game developer ArtCraft Entertainment, Inc. announced today that they have entered into a formal partnership agreement with Travian Games, GmbH of Munich, Germany to help bring their flagship MMO title, Crowfall, to western Europe, Brazil and MENA.

“We received multiple offers to release Crowfall in Europe, but Travian was simply the best cultural fit. Travian Games has enormous reach, with millions of players world-wide — but they are still a game developer at heart,” explained Gordon Walton, president and executive producer at ArtCraft Entertainment. “This was key, as we don’t want a conventional publisher for Crowfall. We want a partner who sees the potential of our game, and won’t try to change it into something else.”

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Lars Janssen, CEO of Travian Games, said “I couldn’t be more excited about the partnership with ArtCraft Entertainment and the opportunity for Travian Games to work on Crowfall. The cultural fit between our teams is amazing and I’m looking forward to jointly building a great community around the game.”

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“Travian Games is one of the first, and most successful, pioneers in campaign-based gaming,” notes J. Todd Coleman, ArtCraft Entertainment CEO and Chief Creative Officer. “Crowfall is the natural evolution of that idea: A dynamic virtual environment where hundreds of thousands of players can compete for world domination and only one alliance can emerge victorious.”

In other Crowfall-related news, ArtCraft has given us a look at the Myrmidon archetype, which is a character class available (I presume exclusively) to those players who choose the Minotaur race. There’s also a post up about some of the decay mechanics that will be implemented in the game, including hunger.

This first look at Crowfall’s harvesting system may be of interest to those who want to play the game for its crafting systems, meanwhile. And if nothing else, do check out this post about recent progress on the game’s environments; the ArtCraft team have been creating some brilliant, beautiful in-game vistas.