Project Copernicus

Project Copernicus was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game in development at 38 Studios, the company founded by former baseball star Curt Schilling. Set in the same original fantasy universe as the 2012 action-RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, a world conceived with author R.A. Salvatore's lore, artist Todd McFarlane's designs and game designer Ken Rolston's systems, Copernicus was envisioned as the studio's flagship, an ambitious MMO that Reckoning was partly intended to introduce and establish. However, the game became one of the most infamous casualties in the industry's history: 38 Studios collapsed financially in 2012, defaulting on a controversial loan guarantee from the state of Rhode Island, and Project Copernicus was cancelled before release, never reaching the public despite years of work and considerable investment. The studio's downfall, which left many developers unpaid and sparked legal and political fallout, became a widely cited cautionary tale about the risks of MMO development and government-backed game financing. Surviving footage and concept material later surfaced, hinting at its scope and the Amalur world it would have expanded. Project Copernicus is remembered less as a game than as the unrealised centrepiece of one of gaming's most public studio failures. Surviving footage later leaked online, offering a glimpse of the ambitious MMO that 38 Studios never finished.