It has been a hot minute since we last heard from Team Scionica, but after a lengthy period of silence, the team behind Valorbound has shared a candid update on the state of the project, outlining both the reasons for the slowdown and the technical steps being taken behind the scenes.
For those who haven’t been following along, Valorbound is a PvPvE fantasy MMO-lite, aimed at having horizontal progression to keep players on the same footing. The last update the team gave us was in April of 2022. According to the most recent update, Valorbound remains an active project, albeit one developed primarily by a single creator.
While the message pinpoints a small support team positioned around the Discord for QA, moderation, and feedback, the bulk of development, from design to implementation, rests on a single developer. Due to that fact, real-world changes have contributed to burnout and reduced development capacity.
Despite those setbacks, some good news was offered as 2026 kicks off, the most significant of which is a major engine transition. Valorbound is moving away from Unity 2022’s built-in render pipeline and upgrading to Unity 6.3 with the Universal Render Pipeline (URP). This shift is expected to bring notable performance improvements, enhanced lighting, and more advanced visual effects, with early demos (posted in the Discord) already showing substantial gains.
On the technical side, the project’s current netcode is also under review. While Valorbound remains on a development break for now, the message concludes stating renewed vigor for the project, albeit at a lower pace as foundational tools and systems are reassessed. Will we see any more from Valorbound this year? Only time will tell.
Christina Gonzalez