Imagine our intrigue at finding a new MMORPG being developed, which was almost immediately drowned by concern the further we started digging in. That mostly sums up our first introduction to Secret Forest World, a new title being created by Zelcar Games that makes a bevy of promises but raises just about as many red flags.
According to the game’s site as well as an FAQ on Discord, Secret Forest lets players choose from 10 different highly customizable races, eight magic elements, selection of a zodiac sign to bring different benefits, and mixed skill trees that allow for customized and strategic action combat. The game’s open world houses PvE activities like dungeons and boss fights, designated PvP zones, and some social features like an in-game marriage system.
It’s at this point that we start finding some worrying trends: First, the studio’s other title, FeraPet, links to a website that is non-functioning at the time of this writing, which is a bit worrying. Second, while the game is still unreleased, its store is absolutely functional, selling four different types of founder’s packs that are advertised as being marked down by 20% between now and its beta release.
Thirdly, and perhaps most worryingly, Secret Forest’s dev blogs have not been updated since last year, and its most recent trailers are months old — and don’t look to our eye to be entirely human-generated.
The aforementioned FAQ lists a tentative dev timeline of closed beta starting four months after its alpha test, followed by open beta in the second quarter of this year, but comments on the game’s trailers and within Discord general chat report that alpha testing wrapped up last year, further adding concern to the earlier mentioned radio silence; all that has been shared most recently is a single dev message on Discord, which says, “[T]he game is still in active development, and we’re working to ensure the release truly meets expectations and is worth the wait.”
Overall there are certainly some concerning things that cover this project, but for those who do want to keep tabs on its progress, the game does have a Steam page for wishlisthing, while those recent trailers can be watched below so you can judge for yourself.
