The Chronicles of Spellborn to be re-developed as free to play, bankruptcy issues loom

The Chronicles of Spellborn only launched a few months ago, but they've already announced that they're going to "re-develop" the game as a free-to-play title. Acclaim Games stated on Monday: "The development is planned to carry into 2010 and will include several enhancements and changes to the current game. The enhancements and development of the new model will be carried through a joint venture between Spellborn NV and the development studio of Frogster Asia Co. Ltd based in Seoul, the Korean studio bringing its expertise in the field of free-to-play and micro-transactions."

Once this re-development is complete The Chronicles of Spellborn will cease to be a subscription game and will switch over to the free-to-play model. We're not sure if there will be any further development on TCOS as it exists now, but a post on the game's EU forums by community manager Kelas stated, "For now, the servers and system (subscription) will remain the way it is. There are still people available for running the daily work and systems."

There is also speculation about another aspect to this shift in direction with The Chronicles of Spellborn, the bankruptcy of Spellborn Works B.V., a smaller company owned by Spellborn N.V.

A post by TCoS lead game designer Selachii, also on the EU forums, confirms the bankruptcy: "Spellborn Works B.V. is indeed declared bankrupt, this is the company where the devs, including me worked for. Currently I don't know what's going to happen to all the servers and services, that information is bound to be provided in the upcoming weeks."

That's the information we have at present, but we expect we'll be hearing more about the situation with The Chronicles of Spellborn soon.