Chronicles of Elyria

Chronicles of Elyria had a Kickstarter campaign from May 3 to June 3, 2016[4] raising $1.36 million, surpassing their goal of $900.000. However, developing a massively multiplayer online role-playing game of the quality Soulbound Studios was aiming for requires more than that[10] and so the company continued crowdfunding on their website and raised over $7.7 million as of October 2019.[11] Pre-production ended in November 2016 at which time active production began. According to disputed claims, the original intent of the Kickstarter campaign was to create a demo version of the game to interest investors, who would then fund the rest of the development. Since the Kickstarter results was not enough to attract investors, they decided to continue development anyways.

After being delayed from its tentative December 2019 date, a special virtual land auction event called "Settlers of Elyria" was launched on March 12, 2020.[12] On March 20, Soulbound Studios released a pre-alpha, gray box demo showcasing parkour mechanics.[13] Four days later, Soulbound Studios announced the closure of the studio, complete staff layoffs and the indefinite hiatus of the project.[5] In response to the perceived lack of delivery of a tangible product after years of development and millions of dollars in funding, as well as the close succession of the land auction, demo and abrupt studio closure, hundreds of backers of Chronicles of Elyria began to organize and explore legal avenues to take against Soulbound Studios and Jeromy Walsh. Within days, the office of the attorney general of Washington had received hundreds of filed complaints - amidst the highest in the state's history.[14] The community around the lawsuit has also shown recent interest in including Xsolla in their lawsuit. This is because XSolla was violating the terms of service backers who purchased through them agreed to by not giving refunds, as the merchant.

On April 9, Walsh released a new statement, claiming that his announcement was misinterpreted and that he would be pursuing continuing the project by having former staff members continue their work on a pro bono basis, while he would seek new sources of funding.[15] On June 26, Jeromy Walsh released a post on the official site announcing that the transaction logs of users was now available (they were subsequently disabled when then the site was locked). He also stated that a new series of content will be posted on the site (and other media) "in the coming weeks".[16] However, after this post, there was no announcement or news from Soulbound Studios for over six months, which was met with sharp criticism.

On December 17 of 2020, Soulbound Studios released a video titled "Inside Chronicles of Elyria - Episode 1" that featured Jeromy Walsh explaining the current state and future of the company and the game. The video claimed that an independent auditor verified that the revenue backers gave to the company was "properly spent on game development". It also claimed that much of the content developed during the four years of development was not at a point for public consumption, but that many back end features had progressed. More importantly, he announced that the game is continuing active development.[17]