Portalarium launches crowdfunded fantasy game Shroud of the Avatar

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
December 13, 2013
Updated June 18, 2025
2 min

Richard Garriott’s Portalarium game studio has launched its crowdfunded fantasy role-playing game, Shroud of the Avatar.

The Austin-based studio said it has launched the “first release” of Shroud of the Avatar for backers of the crowdfunded project, which raised more than $2 million via a Kickstarter campaign. The backers can log into their accounts, download the client, create a character, and begin to wander the streets of Owl’s Head, the game’s first town open for business.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.