I still want to know what exactly happened with the game's development. Aside from a "We'll inform you guys what's going on shortly." There hasn't been a single word from Three-Rings given the events of this game's development.
They've remained quiet when we should be wondering why there was so much time, effort, and funds put into something for it to just be discontinued randomly instead of attempting to rework it. Things happen which is understandable, but this doesn't seem like one of those cases.
The pictures are wonderful and very much appreciated and kind of eye opening as well. A few things that I'd like to say-
First, it looks beautiful. Like seriously awesome. Half of it is copied from current Spiral Knights but all of the new art assets are stunning, from the NPCs to the level pictures to the recoloured stuff. I'm seriously proud of the artist, who is probably Ian. They did an absolutely amazing job on everything shown, as they almost always do.
Second, it looks and feels like fun. I'd rather get updates related to current Spiral Knights than Rise of Knights, but I'd definitely play this if they decide to go back to it or soft launch later or............................. whatever their top secret plan is.
Third, the plot is... interesting. I think it's a prequel by a few thousand years. The Kataclysm in particular has already happened in current Spiral Knights, and took place between the Kats and the Owlites yet we have Greywell, who is presumably a knight, working at the high academy of magicks... Which would indicate that the knights lived with the Owlites in some fashion.. We don't know much about the lore outside of what's happened on Cradle, but it seems plausible that it's kind of like Star Wars. Thousand of years ago, there were other Spiral-Knights here, and our ship just came to their planet after it was destroyed... There are a lot of plot twists I could see happening to connect the two games, but they could definitely be cannon with one another.