Rise of the Merchants Rebrand Debuts at FYNG Show With Black Duke Games

After going quiet for months, the city-building and trade-focused strategy title Coins, Crowns & Cabal is back with a rebrand and a new development team. During the FYNG Show—an event organized by Webedia—its creators unveiled the project as Rise of the Merchants, now developed by Black Duke Games, with the core gameplay promise centered on expanding a small settlement into a profitable global trading network.

Release window, platforms, and editions

The update isn’t just a name change. The central concept remains: players grow a tiny settlement and establish trade connections across the game world. Every trading venture is positioned as both potentially lucrative and inherently risky, with factors like distance and terrain expected to affect how profitable a route can be—especially when criminals enter the picture.

That risk-reward framing suggests the game will ask players to plan routes carefully, weighing the effort and resources needed to maintain them against the expected returns. Beyond logistics, the pitch also emphasizes diplomacy and social decisions, along with hands-on management of production lines to keep trade moving.

In terms of content, the developers say players will have more than 50 buildings available to construct in a “persistent online world.” They also confirm that optional Pv encounters are planned, giving players a choice about how often conflict becomes part of their trading strategy.

Rise of the Merchants was highlighted during FYNG Show, and the reveal trailer is tied to the event broadcast (with the trailer referenced as appearing around the 1:43:00 mark). While the game’s prior announcement as Coins, Crowns & Cabal had gone largely out of view since May, this new presentation establishes the updated identity and the new studio as the project’s direction heading into 2026.