While video game company 38 Studios has already put out its first release (“Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning”), Rhode Islanders are still waiting to see the fruits of their $75 million loan to Curt Schilling and company. That’s because the taxpayer-backed investment provided funding not for “Reckoning” but for Project Copernicus, a massively multiplayer online game (think World of Warcraft) that’s being made here in Providence.

38 Studios has been tight-lipped up to now about when Copernicus would actually make its debut, but it sounds like we won’t have to wait too much longer, Joystiq reports:

In an interview with START, comic artist extraordinaire Todd McFarlane, who is providing art design for Copernicus, nonchalantly dropped news that the studio is aiming to release Project Copernicus “later in the year.” He doesn’t expound any further on when exactly we can expect to get our hands on the game, but with any luck we’ll be getting some more details before long, so stay tuned folks.