Acclaim has updated its release schedule for The Chronicles of Spellborn. The North American version will now be released in January 2009 with closed beta starting Nov. 27. European countries will be going live Nov. 27.

Both launches will have the exact same product versions featuring identical Freemium models but with a different release date to accommodate additional testing for a smooth official release.

With the "freemium" model, players can play for free in the starting zones, but must purchase a premium subscription currently priced at $15 per month to open all game content. The full press release can be found here or below.

Also, sign-up for the closed beta has ended and the non-disclosure agreement has officially been dropped today.

Just received in our news room:

Frogster and the Dutch developer Spellborn are pleased to announce Acclaim Games as US publisher for The Chronicles of Spellborn. The renowned and tradition-steeped American company lead by industry veterans Howard Marks and David Perry has licensed the fantasy MMORPG as their focus title. Acclaim already has almost seven million registered users within their portfolio of currently five online games and is committed to start a large-scale marketing campaign until its launch in late 2008. Acclaim will give North American players a free-to-play zone while subscribers will be able to explore the entire virtual world.

David Perry is regarded as computer games developer guru, responsible for a number of blockbusters in the past 25 years. Having founded the developer studio Shiny Entertainment in 1993 he is one of the few internationally prominent masterminds of the games industry. His partner Howard Marks had been one of the co-founders of the new Activision in 1991, before he became owner of Acclaim in 2005.

The Chronicles of Spellborn will be hiring at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany which starts next week.

As announced previously this week, The Chronicles of Spellborn is attending the Games Convention in Germany. Since we're still looking for skilled people to join our team of developers, what better opportunity is there to drop your portfolio right at our booth?

There will always be a couple of developers around to accept it and take it back to the TCoS HQ so we can have a good look at it and see if you have what it takes to join our ranks.

They have a list of specialties they're looking for, and it includes everything from testers, community management, producers, and artists.  Take a look, and if you'll be in Leipzig for the convention be sure to stop by and take a look at this fantastic game - we sure will!

In anticipation of Leipzig's Games Convention, The Chronicles of Spellborn has published the newest installment of their lore series. Read up, and be prepared in Germany.

Berlin, 2008/08/06: Spellborn NV has just published the fourth chapter of their weekly lore series for The Chronicles of Spellborn . Since the beginning of July, the Dutch developer explains the deep rooted background story of its upcoming fantasy MMORPG. Today's' part has gone online with a competition for 15 one-day tickets for the Games Convention and 15 Spellborn t-shirts. Publisher and Developer are showcasing The Chronicles of Spellborn at the international games exhibition from 21 st to 24 th August in Leipzig, Germany at their stand A10 in hall 5. To win an access to a first tour through the previously unrevealed zone Cairnkegg on the Ringfell shard and cross swords against other players in the Quarterstone Arena, fans need to answer a question about previous chapters of the lore series. It can be found easily together with details of the competition within the recent news on the official website .

Last week we took a look at Part One of the Chronicles of Spellborn's timeline , and this week we've got part 2!

Death’s Dream (0 - 500 AC)

To most scholars it is unknown what has happened in this period. Some of them are not even convinced it lasted a full 500 years. What is known is that the remnants of the world - the various Shards and Fragments - are covered in Undying Ice during this period and that all survivors of the Great Collapse are frozen in time, trapped within a deep slumber.

Want To Know More?

Shards: The Shards are remnant pieces of the Ancestor World floating within the Deadspell Storm. They usually shield their interior habitat (oppidan and levee) from outside influences with a gigantic carapace (consisting out of an inner and an outer carapace) stretching over it. Shards should not be confused with Fragments, which might be as large but lack a carapace. Nor should they be confused with Raftyards, which are considerably smaller, also lack a carapace and are man-made.

Read on for more info, and screenies of what we can expect from The Chronicles of Spellborn!

The Great Collapse (year 0)

The eight High Houses of the humans and their daevi slavedrivers form a last alliance against their Vhelgar masters and destroy their source of power and magic: the Altar of the Undying. Yet, the cost of freedom is high: destroying the Altar also destroys the world itself and throws its various pieces into a swirling sea of untapped magic: the Deadspell Storm.

High Houses:

Read on for more screen shots and a look at the Vhelgar!

As exitement builds for Frogster Interactive's upcoming game, The Chronicles of Spellborn , new information is steadily becoming available. Today it was announced that the lore behind Spellborn will be released periodically in a series of episodic releases. After all, can a game be great without great lore? Sure, but it does help.

Berlin, 2008-07-14: The fragmented gameworld of The Chronicles of Spellborn, split up in plenty of rocks and shards floating through the Deadspell Storm, is the result of a long chain of cataclysmic events and almost forgotten stories. In a new series of features, the Dutch developer Spellborn NV reveals the most important key moments of the multi-layered lore to be explored within the game. From the Great Collapse dating back thousands of years in the past to the present New Century players will enter, the featurette introduces the fascinating background story in brief. Each week, Spellborn will present a new chapter of the timeline from now on, accompanied by concept arts and details on the main events of said period. It's first part just went online on www.tcos.com . After an intensive development and test phase, there's much more to come in terms of regular news and images of The Chronicles of Spellborn from now on. The official website will be relaunched shortly and details about the attendance at the Games Convention in late August will follow soon.

The folks over at Chronicles of Spellborn have sent us some of their most recent beta screen shots, and here are a few of them for you to drool over!


There are 10 new screenies total, and you'll find them all in our Spellborn games list entry under screen shots. The newest ten are towards the bottom!

The Chronicles of Spellborn has published new beta shots from their game!

The screenies can be found in their gallery, here.

In one of the most exciting news releases I've gotten in a long time, it appears that Spellborn just might have a U.S. publisher!

After a first review of the beta tests of The Chronicles of Spellborn, which began at the beginning of March, the Dutch developers have decided to make a revision to the server infrastructure. At this time, the game-play mechanics and graphics of the game client have already matched the high demand for quality. These have been mostly completed and will now be thoroughly optimized and polished. In reworking the tools and the network code, Spellborn NV now wants to ensure that the flow and performance of gameplay live up to the general expectations. At the same time, the developer will lay the foundation to allow for quick expansion of the game, with new content and updates, once it is released.

Meanwhile, Frogster Interactive has found a renowned MMOG publisher to be a potential partner for the release of Spellborn in the USA and has already signed a letter of intent. For a successful market introduction, the potential licensor will require a lead time of six months at least. As a consequence, both Frogster and the developers of Spellborn NV have decided to initiate the revision of the server architecture and to use this time to prepare for a coordinated worldwide release of the game. Considering the new strategy, Frogster assumes a launch of The Chronicles of Spellborn in autumn 2008. Nevertheless, the developer will continue the current closed beta tests for the time being. Just recently, Spellborn NV has expanded the circle of accredited testers by one hundred committed members of the community to balance and optimize the gameplay even more. Twelve new screenshots of the characters of beta testers have been posted yesterday on http://tcos.com/news/?id=965.

This is incredible news, and exciting for the entire Spellborn team!  Let's hope that it comes through, and hope for a smooth worldwide release!!