On the Future of A'therys - From the Creative Director

A lot can happen in ten years!

Believe it or not, that's how long we've been telling the A'therys story, starting with A'therys Ascended by Gazamo Games. V1, as most now call it, was among the first role-playing and combat servers to gain popularity in Minecraft. The beautiful builds, the much-loved texture pack, and the tight-knit community invited people from all walks of life to explore new lands together in a way that hadn't quite taken off before. As one of the founding members of the A'therys effort, I remain intensely proud of the work we did those years ago and the products released since.

Minecraft was our foundation, allowing us to tell stories in interactive ways that took players along for the ride. V2 and EVO each improved upon their predecessors in uncountable ways, growing the community and introducing more people to the world we love. We always strove to treat Minecraft not just as a game, but as an engine with which to create. At Yora Games, those old experiences remain close to our hearts, and we only want to build on them as we move forward.

Recently, Aeons brought you a nostalgic look at the servers of old, while later in the year you'll be able to experience the grand new adventure of Horizons at last. But from the day we designed it, we knew A'therys couldn't be relegated to someone else's platform forever. There were many ideas over the years of how to evolve beyond RP/PVP servers, always with the right spirit but never the right timing. That is of course, until now.

In the future, perhaps sooner than you think, I'm extremely pleased to say that we'll be expanding the A'therys brand beyond Minecraft. I can't say too much at this point about exactly where, but by the time Horizons launches that should become pretty clear. The team has some exciting plans that you won't want to miss; Yora did not acquire A'therys simply to launch Horizons and call it a day. Candidly, that vision is what has brought so many of the old guard back, including myself, to join the stalwart folks already laboring to make it a reality. There's an energy here that I simply haven't felt since V2, a sense of creating something truly new with A'therys and moving the experience forward.

Of course, we have no intention of leaving everyone's favorite voxel-building game behind, not yet certainly. For more on where Yora is headed in Minecraft, check out my companion blog post on the newly refreshed A'therys website. Suffice to say, there's much in store. We hope you'll look forward to our future announcements as much as we are, I know I personally can't wait to share what we're up to. But, I reckon we'll just have to be patient for a little longer. Until next time.