The latest update for Umbra provided backers with a teaser trailer, several new screenshots and confirmation that the open-world action RPG would be released on Early Access on 24th March – yet all these positive elements were overshadowed by the unexpected news that Umbra would henceforth be known as Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem.
The announcement generated a flurry of responses from backers with 50 comments made so far – considerably more than any previous update. Feedback on the new name ranged from apathy to derision and there was also some consternation from the community about the lack of explanation behind this major decision.
The name change also extended to developer Solarfall Games who were transforming into Wolcen Studios and it took more than 40 comments before they added any more detail. Bizarrely though they those to post the explanation on their own website and merely link to it from the comments section of the update which was hardly going to improve the mood of backers.
The fact that a copyright issue is resulting in the name change to Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem only raises further concerns however. It turns out the name Umbra is already taken, but with the Kickstarter completed almost eight months ago and the Early Access only three weeks away, how has this only been noticed now? The fact the website for the renamed Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem is still sporting the old domain name of umbragame.com only serves to confuse matters further.
Personally I don’t necessarily dislike the new name of Wolcen as much as some of the backers (although Umbra was far better) but the subtitle Lords of Mayhem feels very generic to me. Plus, despite reading the update and press release I’m still not 100% sure how I’m supposed to pronounce Wolcen…
Hmm. Pronounced ‘Wool-Sin”?
My first instinct on the pronunciation is “Wole-chen”.
Drop Wolcen and just call the game Lords of Mayhem
As long as the game is good who cares about its name?
There is a new update about the price. A shame this article was made a few days ago. This last update is way more worth talking about than the name.
It’s old English, it’s pronounced Wol-ken it means heaven or clouds. Think it’s originally fromGermany
This is America, we pronounce it whoah-el-ken 😉
[…] Action-RPG game Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem (Formerly Umbra) is set to release on Early Access on March 24th. Wolcen is also well on target for its planned […]