Project Gorgon says server merges aren’t happening right now as housing work continues

Project Gorgon developer Elder Game says it isn’t planning server merges right now, even as post-launch populations have dipped from the game’s February release spike. Instead, the team says it’s focusing on new content and features for May, including housing-related work, a new high-level group dungeon, and more updates tied to Statehelm.

According to Eric Heimburg in a Discord post, the current roadmap includes environmental art improvements, housing skill props, a replacement for the old weekly buff system, Mac support, Steam achievements, more Statehelm content, and an apartment system in Statehelm. Heimburg said the goal is a sizable May update with a new dungeon and possibly a new skill.

On server merges, the answer was pretty direct: they’re not being considered at this point. Heimburg said populations fell a bit more than expected after launch, but not enough to make the servers unplayable. He also argued that Project Gorgon starts to feel overcrowded at around 500 active players, with more competition and friction in the world.

There’s also a technical issue. The game apparently doesn’t currently have the tools needed to combine servers, and Heimburg estimated building that database merging system would take about two months. His view is that spending that time on merges now would delay Statehelm work, only to risk needing fresh servers again if player counts rise.

So for now, Elder Game is sticking with the current setup while it looks into why the population dropped more than expected and prepares some advertising. The studio also plans to add one or two more developers.

For context, SteamCharts shows Project Gorgon hit a little over 4,000 concurrent players around launch and has peaked at roughly 2,000 over the last month. For a small, long-running indie MMO, that’s still not nothing, even if it’s well below the launch rush.