Overview
Avalon is an MMO designed around the idea that players shouldn’t just play inside a world, they should have the tools to shape it. Built in Unreal Engine, Avalon blends traditional MMORPG structure with world-building systems that let players create their own zones, quests, characters, and even entire rule-sets. Instead of a fixed map or story path, Avalon opens the door to a network of player-driven realms, each with their own identity and playstyle. The goal is to make an MMO that continues expanding because the community fuels it rather than waiting on updates from a studio.
Avalon is led by developers who have worked on some of the most influential online games ever made, including EverQuest, Call of Duty, Diablo, and World of Warcraft. The leadership team, with Jeffrey Butler and Sean Pinnock at the center, has built a development culture focused on giving players ownership and creative freedom.
Gameplay and Features
Avalon plays like a traditional MMORPG on the surface. You explore open zones, fight enemies, gather resources, complete quests, and interact with other players in shared areas. The difference is that Avalon is built so the community can shape the world, not just play inside it. Many of the same tools used by the developers are available to players, letting them create their own regions, storylines, characters, and even new styles of gameplay within the same universe.
The game is built in Unreal Engine, so environments and combat feel modern and grounded, without being overly twitch-based or slow and bulky. Official worlds have the familiar MMO structure — towns, dungeons, overworld exploration, PvP zones — but the real feature is the Realm Editor. Using it, players or guilds can design full playable spaces: adjusting terrain, placing buildings, setting weather, defining enemy behavior, or even changing the rules of how combat and progression work. Some realms may look like classic RPG zones, while others might play more like arena battlegrounds, survival maps, roleplay hubs, or boss-challenge environments.
NPCs also behave differently from most MMOs. Thanks to Inworld AI and Didimo tech, characters can respond in more natural ways, remember player interactions during play sessions, and serve customized roles in user-created realms. It makes NPCs feel less like quest vending machines and more like actual parts of the world.
Avalon supports both official servers run by the studio and community-run servers where players can experiment freely. Guilds can claim territory, build infrastructure, and shape how their corner of the world functions. Combat supports both PvE and PvP, and because each realm can define its own rules, some worlds will lean into cooperation while others lean into competition.
NFTs and Blockchain
Avalon has confirmed that the game will include an on-chain layer, but full details have not been publicly released yet. The general direction shared by the team is that certain in-game creations and player-driven content will be supported on-chain so that they can exist independently of a single server or platform. The goal is to ensure that when players create or earn something in Avalon, it can have persistence and verifiable ownership.
Beyond that, the exact systems, asset types, and marketplace structure have not been finalized or disclosed. As development progresses and the studio moves into broader testing, more information about how on-chain elements will work is expected to be shared.
Latest Game Updates (2025)
In 2025, Avalon continued development through closed, invite-only test sessions focused on improving core gameplay and its creation tools. These internal playtests helped the team refine the feel of combat, the flow of exploration, and the usability of the Realm Editor — the toolset that allows players to build and shape their own in-game environments. Work also continued on NPC behavior systems and social features, as the team gathered feedback on how these elements support player-driven world building.
How To Get Started
Avalon, still in the early stages of development, has successfully secured $13 million in funding to create an interoperable digital universe, marking a pivotal step towards the realization of a metaverse. For the latest updates on their game development and news on possible Playtests, make sure to follow their social media channels and join the Avalon Discord server.
