PETITION TO BRING BACK PROJECT DRAGON 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few weeks ago, Phoenix Labs announced the cancellation of one of their titles: Everhaven (codename: Project Dragon)

The game was a few weeks away from being announced to the public, it was canceled “just months before bringing it to players” says Hunter Rowe on Linkedin, the game director on the project. Many developers worked on the project for multiple years (4 years), and recently started posting their contribution on social networks, triggering a large wave of positive feedback from the public. An hashtag was started: #BringBackProjectDragon, used as a way to support the project.

We now create this petition to support the fight for its release, or at least give the project a chance to maybe get saved through a Kickstarter, to possibly gain visibility to bring more investments, maybe get a change of hearts from executives and potential interested parties who would see the potential in the project and to show the world the real tangible interest the players have for the game…  Anything that could make it work, as we believe the game had unlimited potential.

Game development is tricky, but studios are nothing without players and their support, and we trust the eagerness of Phoenix labs’ amazing community to support their wonderful project. 

Some Numbers available:

- Over 16K people liked a post made by Nicholas Kole, showing a first sneak pic of the project on twitter and 33k people reacted to a single tweet announcing the cancellation of the project before that. 

- People with a large following reacted to the cancellation:

User @_Silvervale_ (486K+ followers on Twitch) said: "This actually breaks my heart. I'm an avid cozy game enjoyer and this could have been so perfect.

I would've been absolutely obsessed with this game. My community would have loved playing it together. Tearing up right now looking at all the gorgeous concept art imagining what could have been. You can tell how much love went into this. This game sounded so fun and it's a tragedy we don't get to play it. 

Pouring 3 years of endless passion into something just for it to be canceled right before release, the gaming industry is so cruel. My deepest condolences to all the devs. At least we get a bittersweet silver lining of being able to see it 😭💔"

User @Playwith_Josh (Josh's Gaming Garden 53.3K followers on Youtube) said: "This could have been such an amazing game..."

User @KawaiiFoxita (34K+ Followers on twitter) said: "This is an absolutely devastating loss for us all. The artwork and music is stunning. 

I feel so sorry for everyone on the team who worked so hard on Project Dragon. 

Sending love! 

❤️"

 

- And many more expressed their regret towards the cancellation of the project.

We can also add that "VGInsights recently released a report showing that co-op (and other multiplayer games) are very popular. They found that despite only 6% of games on Steam having co-op, they made up 36% of the total revenue in 2024. 

I can see this success in the 1000+ review games too.

21% of the 2024’s hit games so far (51 of them) were tagged with co-op.

Co-op is huge." source: https://vginsights.com/assets/reports/VGI_Rise_of_the_Co-Op_Games.pdf

We can also observe on steam, one of the biggest game marketplace (where other Phoenix Labs' titles are also available), that games within the same genres are very popular.

Here are some games with similar mechanics:

Valheim (PC, Xbox), Open World, Co-op with building mechanics sold hundreds of thousands of copies, with almost 400K positive reviews on steam for an estimated gross revenue of $442.167.000+

Minecraft (All platforms), Open World, Co-op with building mechanics reportedly generating over 100 millions USD yearly with 140 millions active monthly players.

Breath of the Wild (Nintendo Switch), a fantasy action RPG in the same genre received multiple awards, and won a Game Of The Year award.

 

 

Please, if you like game development, if you like the visuals of the project and if you are a potential player, sign and share this petition. We don't know if this could possibly change anything, but hope this could get noticed by the people in charge, with the power to make things change, or at least, show some support for all the developers who worked on the project.

 

Have a wonderful day.

Some examples of what was posted on social networks by former employees/contractors of the studio: