Operations file — AE/STU · REV 2026.09
Astronaut Entertainment is a 2-person independent studio that has spent every year since 2025 learning to do one difficult thing well: build a persistent MMORPG world that runs the same on a phone and on a desktop. That world is Ancient Online : Remastered. This page is the honest version of how we got here — and the rules we picked up on the way.
Building online worlds.
One team around one flagship. From engineering to community — the full breakdown is below.
Founded 12 April 2025 — Yuri's Night. We've been building one world ever since.
One engine stack for desktop and mobile. What we do with it is in the technology section.
Localization runs alongside development, not after it — the same world in every supported language at launch.
Ancient Online : Remastered didn't start as Ancient Online : Remastered. Year by year, the honest version.
Astronaut Entertainment is founded by a small team with a single line on the whiteboard: build a persistent online world, and keep it alive for years. The first world prototype is on the bench the same year. It all starts on April 12 — Yuri's Night — and hasn't stopped since.
Project M enters development: a playable online prototype of the MMORPG we actually wanted — rival empires, open-field farming, an upgrade path with real stakes. The codename was never meant to survive. The systems underneath it were.
The prototype is played, broken, and rebuilt. Combat readability, server load under a full map, the economy of a farming loop — version after version, most of it cut. Nobody will ever see most of what we made in these years. That is exactly what they were for.
The prototype earns a real name. A name is a public promise, so we made it one: Ancient Online : Remastered is announced at ancient.astent.games, and localization begins for all 18 launch languages — Arabic and its right-to-left script included from day one, not bolted on later.
Ancient Online : Remastered is in full production on Unreal Engine 5.8 — the first internal Nanite and Lumen builds are running, and the targets are locked: Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS. Localization is complete. There is still no launch date, and that is deliberate — see rule 02 below.
Log open — next entry: launch day.
No inflated org chart — six disciplines, one payload. This is who puts Ancient Online : Remastered on your screen, and what each of them owns.
2 aboard · 5 seats opening — See open roles
We don't count heads by department — people move where the mission needs them.
Owns the loop: empire rivalry, farming spots, the upgrade path and its odds. Every drop table and enchant chance is specced like a contract — because rule 03 says players get to trust it.
One Unreal Engine 5.8 codebase, five platforms. The job: a phone and a desktop showing the same battle, honestly — same world, different frame budgets.
Persistent world state, custom replication, and the moment an entire guild lands on one boss. When the map fills and nothing breaks, this crew is why.
Eastern-fantasy ruins, fortresses, and hunting grounds — blocked out gray first, because if a siege isn't fun in greybox, no amount of art will save it. Built for Nanite density, readable at phone size.
Eighteen launch languages treated as first-class, right-to-left Arabic included. The program wrapped before launch — because reading your own language in your own empire is not a patch-note promise. The full board is below.
Gameplay testing today; Game Masters, moderation, and community at launch. This is the discipline we're hiring into right now — it's why the Crew page exists.
Open roles
EN
English
TR
Türkçe
DE
Deutsch
FR
Français
ES
Español
IT
Italiano
PT
Português
PL
Polski
RO
Română
HU
Magyar
CS
Čeština
DA
Dansk
RU
Русский
AR
العربية
RTL JA
日本語
KO
한국어
ZH
中文
VLS
Vlaams
Every studio hangs values on a wall. Ours come with receipts — each rule below sits next to the moment it cost us something.
A feature ships when it makes the world better to live in, not when it makes a trailer longer. Anything that exists to pad an update gets cut in review.
Log // 2021–2024: most of the Project M prototype never reached Ancient Online : Remastered. Not wasted — filtered.
We move dates before we ship something broken. A launch day is the one first impression a persistent world ever gets.
Log // 2026: full production, internal builds running — and still no announced launch date. That is the rule working.
An MMO is a promise about rules. Upgrade odds, farm spots, empire borders — players invest years, so the systems they invest in don't get quietly rewritten underneath them.
Log // Standing since the first design doc: no seasonal wipes. Characters grow by persistence, and persistence is permanent.
Schedules flex. Burning out 2 people to hit a date would end the studio that has to keep this world running for years afterward.
Log // See rule 02. The unannounced date protects the world and the people building it — same rule, both directions.
Straight updates for players and partners — including when something goes wrong. No patch-note fog, no silent nerfs.
Log // This page is the policy in practice: everything on it is specific, and everything specific is checkable.
One engine stack from a 2-person team to five platforms. Three bets make that possible — and one constraint keeps them honest.
Ruins, fortresses, and colonnades at full geometric density — no LOD pop, no "mobile version" of the world's shape. Platforms change the budget, never the architecture.
In an MMO, light is information: night hunting grounds, magma rifts, torch-lit sieges. Lumen keeps all of it dynamic without baking a thousand static maps.
Stock replication was never built for a guild war. Ours is custom: interest management for crowded farm maps, and server-side truth for every hit and every upgrade roll.
Not five versions of a game — one world with five doors.
A pre-launch studio, and not pretending otherwise. Three lines, kept current.
Full production on Unreal Engine 5.8. Internal builds running on all five targets. No public date — see rule 02.
ANCIENT.ASTENT.GAMESA second world, in early planning. We'll talk when there is something real to show.
Hiring for community, support, and player-facing roles — mostly remote, EMEA time zones.
Open roles