HERO QUEST returns! Again!

After their previous crowdfunded resurrection of Hero Quest floundered on the shoals of iffy legal licensing rights, Gamezone Miniatures have returned with a new attempt. This time they are using Spanish crowdfunding site Lanzanos to fund the resurrected game.

In all other aspects, this is the same deal as their previous Kickstarter attempt: a new boxed set, with all Warhammer/Games Workshop-troubling lore and design references removed. The rules, spells, characters etc all remain the same, but the new version of the game will improve on the original in some respects: the cardboard scenery and obstacle markers will be replaced by plastic miniatures.

The campaign runs for another 23 days, but the game is already funded to the tune of 402% of its original goal. As more money is raised, more features will be added to the game (including extra cards, character sheets, models and so on). Assuming no more obstacles, the game should be available to buy at the end of this year.

Will Obsidian and Red Eagle put a WHEEL OF TIME RPG on Kickstarter?

Yesterday, Rock Paper Shotgun interviewed the guys at Obsidian Entertainment about their upcoming plans. Their latest big-budget game, South Park: The Stick of Truth, is due to launch in April 2014 and their Kickstarted, overhead RPG Pillars of Eternity should follow soon after. Obsidian are already looking at ideas for a new Kickstarter project.

They talk at length about ideas for a much more open-world style of game using the Unity Engine (which they are using for Pillars of Eternity), but they also drop hints to what the next Kickstarter should be. One of the ideas they are actively discussing is a licensed game as part of a pre-existing franchise. This, to me, hints that they might be talking about their long-delayed Wheel of Time RPG.

Backing up, about three years ago Obsidian signed a development deal with Red Eagle, the rights-holding company which controls the rights for Wheel of Time video games. This deal was to make a single-player RPG set in the Wheel of Time universe and world. Obsidian seemed excited by what they could do with the game, and fan response was positive, especially when it was revealed that Obsidian's best-known writer, Chris Avellone (the creative force behind Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights II: Mask of the Betrayer and Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues, several of the greatest RPGs ever made), would be working on the project.

However, nothing has happened with the idea since. Red Eagle was in charge of securing the funding for the game, and failed to do so. Electronic Arts signed a speculative distribution agreement for the game, but chose not to fund and formally publish it. With Triple-A RPG budgets heading towards $100 million (Skyrim, for example, cost $80 million and the Mass Effect trilogy not far off that per game), Red Eagle proved unable to come up with the cash themselves.

Last year, both Red Eagle and Obsidian launched Kickstarters. Red Eagle launched one to make a Wheel of Time casual strategy game for tablets and smartphones, Banner of the Rising Sun. They asked for $450,000 and raised $3,000, a hugely disappointing failure. Obsidian launched one to make an isometric, 'old-skool' RPG with impressive graphics but a much tighter focus on story and character. They asked for $1.1 million and instead raised over $4.1 million, an absolutely massive success.

With both Red Eagle and Obsidian willing to use Kickstarter to achieve their goals, it makes sense that they might consider joining forces to do the same for a Wheel of Time game. The viability of this depends on the deal with EA. If this has expired, there's nothing stopping them doing this. However, if EA retain the distribution rights the project will likely not be viable: Kickstarter is for games that otherwise wouldn't get off the ground, and the involvement of a massive company like EA would be toxic for any such campaign. Provided there are no obstacles, the combination of Obsidian's Kickstarter and game-making experience and Red Eagle's Wheel of Time licence could be highly appealing.

Obsidian will announce what their next project is in the spring, so we have a few months to find out if this is the direction they are going to go in.

ELITE: DANGEROUS combat alpha begins

Elite: Dangerous, the forthcoming, Kickstarted fourth game in the highly influential Elite franchise, has launched its combat alpha for backers of the project. This will allow backers to play a series of combat missions to get a feel for the game's user-interface, combat mechancis and spaceflight model.

The second and third games in the series, Frontier (1993) and First Encounters (1995), were lauded for their use of Newtonian physics and vast universes, but criticised for their combat which was confusing, messy and unenjoyable. The new game will employ a system more akin to that of the original Elite (1984) and games like the Wing Commander and Freespace series, allowing players to pull dynamic maneoeuvers and shunt energy from one subsystem to another for a quick boost to speed, shields or weapons. However, this system will be more complex in Elite: Dangerous and allow players to mask their energy signatures altogether to go into stealth mode (at the risk of overheating).

In the linked interview, David Braben also talks about the modelling of star systems within the game, with the 150,000 star systems closest to Earth modelled accurately (even down to their exoplanets, if known).

Elite: Dangerous will enter its beta stage in the New Year, with a full release hoped for by the middle of 2014. UK SF publishers Gollancz will be published a range of novels to tie in with the release of the game as well.

PROJECT ETERNITY becomes PILLARS OF ETERNITY

Obsidian's forthcoming, Kickstarted RPG has got a final title. Known as Project Eternity throughout development, the game's final title will be Pillars of Eternity. Obsidian have a detailed preview video featuring actual gameplay below.

Pillars of Eternity is a 'spiritual successor' to the Baldur's Gate series, set in a traditional fantasy mileu but with a few twists based around the concept of souls and soul magic. The game is also set in a colonial society rather than the traditional European imperial fantasyland.

As Obsidian, the same team was responsible for Fallout: New Vegas and Knights of the Old Republic II, two of the most interesting RPGs of the last decade (not to mention Alpha Protocol, Neverwinter Nights II, Dungeon Siege III and the forthcoming South Park: The Stick of Truth). In their former incarnation as Black Isle they also created Planescape: Torment, the Fallout and Icewind Dale series and provided technical assistance on the Baldur's Gate games from BioWare. As giants of the RPG genre, it'll be interesting to see what they pull off with this game, which eschews complex (and ultra-expensive) 3D graphics in favour of deeper gameplay, more immersive combat and stronger writing.

Pillars of Eternity is expected in mid-to-late 2014, and is one of my most eagerly-awaited games of next year.

HERO QUEST maybe not returning after all

Just a few days into its campaign to resurrect the classic 1989 board game Hero Quest, Gamezone Miniatures have run afoul of IP laws and had the project suspended.

So far the only official word is that the Kickstarter is the subject of a copyright dispute, with no word given on what parties are involved. The most likely possibility is that Hasbro, who own the Hero Quest brand name and the original game rights, were not impressed with Gamezone's claim that they would be shipping the game outside of Spain and other countries where they still have the licence. According to Gamezone, they had been in talks with Hasbro about officially licencing the game to other territories (presumably for a fee); Gamezone saying they could ship anywhere in the world effectively meant they were saying this was not required and the game could be delivered regardless of talks with Hasbro, which Hasbro may have taken a dim view of.

An alternative possibility is that the famously litigious-even-when-they-don't-have-a-leg-to-stand-on Games Workshop decided to get involved. Whilst Hero Quest was created and owned by MB (owned by Hasbro), Games Workshop created the lore for the original game and manufactured the miniatures, some of which were drawn from its Warhammer IP. The only Warhammer-specific monsters in the original game were Fimirs and Chaos Knights, neither of which were apparently going to feature in the new version; all of the other creatures were 'standard' elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, undead, gargoyles etc. Removing the few (and always very vague) references to the Warhammer world from the setting and plot description would also be very easy.

Even if Gamezone's project is unable to continue, hopefully the fact that people were willing to back it to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars sight unseen might mean that the project could be continued by Hasbro themselves. More news as it appears.

HERO QUEST returns

Back in 1989 Games Workshop joined forces with MB Games to produce Hero Quest, a miniatures boardgame which pitted four heroes against the forces of a diabolical wizard. The game drew on the Warhammer world and setting for inspiration, though foreknowledge of that game was not required. The game was immensely successful in Europe and a minor hit in the USA, spawning both an SF spin-off (Space Crusade, based on the Warhammer 40,000 setting) and numerous expansions to the base game. Now it's coming back.

The original Hero Quest and its monsters, board and scenery.

Gamezone Miniatures have the licence to reproduce the original board game in Spain, as well as adding various new features to it (the 'scenery' markers in the original game were cardboard tokens, but in this release will be small 3D models). Gamezone are also talking to other IP holders (Hasbro own the Hero Quest IP in the UK) about rolling out a wider release. However, the game will be available (in English) from Spain for international orders.

The Kickstarter has already been an enormous success, raising over $320,000 of a mere asked-for $58,000 in just a day. It's expected that the appeal will comfortably raise more than $1 million before the Kickstarter closes in 30 days' time.

 

A rough mock-up of the new version.

Details emerge on SHADOWRUN: DRAGONFALL

Harebrained Schemes have released some new info on the first major expansion to their recent hit RPG, Shadowrun Returns. Formerly entitled Berlin, the new expansion has now been renamed Shadowrun: Dragonfall, though it will still be predominantly set in Berlin.

In addition to the name change, the expansion will feature upgrades to the engine, including the much-requested ability to save anywhere (this feature will also be patched back into Shadowrun Returns itself). The expansion will differ in format from the linear main game and will instead be based around hubs where, as well as pursuing the main storyline, the player will be able to pursue a large number of optional side-missions.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall will be released in January 2014.

Trailer for SHADOWRUN RETURNS

Shadowrun Returns is a Kickstarter-funded, turn-based RPG based on the Shadowrun franchise. A mash up of cyberpunk and fantasy, Shadowrun Returns is set in a future where magic has returned to the world, along with non-human creatures like orcs, trolls, dwarves and elves.

Funded mostly by fans and created by Jordan Weisman, the original creator of the Shadowrun world and game, Shadowrun Returns is the the first major Kickstarter-backed video game to be created and released (FTL was also Kickstarter-funded, but only after most of it had already been finished), and is being seen as an important litmus test for the whole notion of crowd-funded video games. The second such game, Wasteland 2, will be released at the end of 2013, followed by the first half of Double Fine's Broken Age early next year.

Shadowrun Returns is looking good at the moment. It will be released on 25 July and will be available through platforms such as Steam.

ELITE: DANGEROUS starmap is a thing of beauty

Frontier Developments have posted a new screenshot from their Kickstarter-funded space trading/combat game Elite: Dangerous. This screenshot shows their starmap, which the player will use to travel from system to system and within systems as well.

The starmap used in Frontier: Elite 2 was a phenomenal piece of work (considering it was an addendum to the main game) and it looks like the map in the fourth game is shaping up to be far more impressive.

As a bonus, see if you can catch all the SF references on the image.

SYNDICATE successor SATELLITE REIGN begins Kickstarter appeal

Back in 1993 Bullfrog released what may have been their finest game: Syndicate. In the game you controlled a team of four cyborg agents from an overhead perspective. They would go from massive cyberpunk city to massive cyberpunk city, carrying out missions that would help your corporation go from a modest start-up to a world-straddling conglomerate. The game was noted for the presence of large numbers of civilians, its living cities (complete with cars, trains and police), its atmospheric soundtrack and its huge arsenal of weapons. The game was also noted for its differing approaches: you could charge through all guns blazing, adopt a stealth approach of using long-range sniper weapons and hiding, or taking control of masses of civilians with a 'Persuadertron' device and using them to rush the enemy with overwhelming numbers. You could also research new technology and make more money between missions from a strategic gameplay mode.

The game spawned an expansion, American Revolt, and then a sequel, Syndicate Wars, in 1996. The sequel was similar, although it removed the limitations of having finite ammo and made all of the buildings in the game fully destructible. In 2012 Starbreeze Studios issued a new game called Syndicate, but this was an FPS lacking anything in common at all with the originals apart from some weapon names. Though on its own terms an okay shooter, the game was heavily criticised for lacking the intelligence and strategic gameplay of the original.

The creators of Syndicate Wars are now Kickstarting a 'spiritual successor', named Satellite Reign in homage to a weapon in Syndicate Wars (the Satellite Rain, which called in a laser strike from an orbiting armed satellite). The new game is similar, with again you using four agents from an overhead perspective. Rather than multiple cities, there is now one huge city and your agents can work for both moral and amoral corporations. Your four agents are also now more specialised, with some RPG elements creeping in.

The blurb:

"Satellite Reign is a real-time, class-based strategy game. You control a squad of four agents, each with distinct and unique abilities as they vie and battle for control of a fully simulated, living, cyberpunk city.

The game world is designed to facilitate emergent gameplay, giving you the tools and freedom to play how you want to play, so you can create strategies and scenarios that not even we had anticipated!

Customise your team with the strength to destroy your enemies head-on, or hack into their facilities to manipulate their infrastructure without them ever knowing you were even there.

Will you take down your enemies with brute-force? Covert espionage and infiltration? Or will you use propaganda to influence the citizens of the city and overthrow the controlling powers?

Satellite Reign will be released on Windows, Mac OS and Linux."

The team are asking for $350,000, which is fairly modest by Kickstarter standards. Their website is here.

TORMENT update: Rothfuss and Avellone in

The Kickstarter for Torment: Tides of Numenera is roughly halfway done, with 14 days to go before the end of the appeal. However, the game is already funded: having asked for $900,000, inXile Studios have actually received $2.9 million. The game is now deep into what Kickstarter calls, 'stretch goals', that is additional incentives for people to keep funding in the form of added content to the game.

First up, if the game hits $3.25 million then the writing team will be expanded to include bestselling fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind, The Wise Man's Fear). Rothfuss will be adding about 10,000 words of content to the game in the form of dialogue and characters. He won't be doing any more because of his commitments to finishing off The Doors of Stone, the third and concluding volume of The Kingkiller Chronicle.

Much more enticing (to this blogger, anyway) is that at $3.5 million, inXile will add Chris Avellone to the writing time. Avellone was the primary writer and designer of the original Planescape: Torment (to which Numenera is the spiritual successor), as well as Fallout 2, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer and the forthcoming Project: Eternity. He also worked on Icewind Dale and its sequel; Fallout: New Vegas (including leading the design of several of its DLC episodes); and Alpha Protocol. He has also done some writing for inXile's previous Kickstarter game project, Wasteland 2. He is often cited as the finest writer of Western CRPGs. Exactly why Avellone still hasn't written a novel, I don't know, as I suspect it would be awesome. Avellone will be creating a new NPC character for the game and writing their dialogue, but will also be serving as an editor and a fresh pair of eyes on the work of the rest of the team as well.

With still two weeks to go, I suspect this Kickstarter will breeze past both targets and probably end up somewhere on the other side of $4 million when all is said and done. It's shaping up to be a very interesting game.

Torment: Tides of Numenera now on Kickstarter

InXile Entertainment have launched their Kickstarter campaign for their roleplaying game, Torment: Tides of Numenera.

This game is a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, the 1999 PC game which is widely regarded as the best (and certainly the best-written) computer RPG ever made. Eschewing traditional fantasy conventions (no elves, no dwarves, precious few action sequences), the game delved deeply into themes of identity, responsibility, consequence and if people can every truly change themselves. It sold modestly but has attracted critical acclaim like no other RPG in history.

Since inXile do not have the rights to the Planescape setting, they are instead setting this game in a different universe altogether. The setting is Numenera, a pen-and-paper setting conceived by Monte Cook, one of the chief designers on the 3rd Edition of the Dungeons and Dragons game. The setting is Earth, approximately one billion years in the future. Our world has been rendered almost unrecognisable over that time, having gone through technology-driven utopian periods and multiple catastrophes. The planet is littered with the remnants of ultra-advanced technology that no-one understands any more (the 'numenera' of the title), not to mention alien and genetically-engineered lifeforms. There are echoes of Jack Vance's Dying Earth and Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun in the descriptions of the setting. This isn't Generic Medieval Landscape #35.

The plot of the game involves a being who is capable of skipping between different bodies, which are lifeless husks before and after he uses them. Somehow, one of the husks comes to life after he has vacated it. This creature - you - then has to search for identity and the answers to several mysteries (like, presumably, the identity of the body-jumper) along the way.

The game will be an isometric role-playing game, created using the Unity Engine. It will feature combat, but as with Planescape: Torment it will almost all be avoidable, with your character able to use dialogue or skills to resolve confrontations rather than violence.

InXile are asking for $900,000. They are certainly going to hit this, given that the total right now (just a couple of hours after launch and with a month to go) is $150,000. Amounts raised beyond that will allow for more elements to be added to the game. InXile have also guaranteed that they will pass on 5% of any excess to fund additional Kickstarter projects.

Torment: Tides of Numenera will be released in late 2014. InXile will ship Wasteland 2 at the end of this year. As they mention in the pitch video, with Wasteland 2 now in full development on the 3D and content side of things, their concept artists and writers are now free to fully commit to Torment (otherwise they'd presumably be left with nothing to do for six months or would have to be let go), explaining the timing of the appeal.

More detailed plans for PLANESCAPE: TORMENT successor emerge

InXile Studios may be hard at work on Wasteland 2, the crowd-funded sequel to the seminal 1988 computer RPG Wasteland, but they have already announced their next project. With most of the writing and concept art completed for Wasteland 2, those teams have started work on a game that may be called Numenera: Torment. This game will be a spiritual sequel to the classic 1999 RPG Planescape: Torment, widely-regarded as the finest (and most literate) computer roleplaying game ever made.

The new game will not involve any of the characters or situations from Planescape: Torment (which is copyrighted by Atari and Wizards of the Coast), but will share a similar focus on characterisation and philosophical matters, such as the nature of life, death and consciousness. The setting will be Numenera, a new roleplaying setting created by Monte Cook. Cook is a highly respected RPG game designer and worked extensively on the original Planescape setting for the Dungeons and Dragons game in the 1990s.

The game itself is being worked on by Colin McComb, one of the main designers on the original Planescape pen-and-paper setting and a key creative force on Planescape: Torment. The director of the game is Kevin Saunders, who has joined the team from Obsidian, where he led the Mask of the Betrayer team. Also on board are Torment designer Adam Heine and Dana Knutson, the concept artist whose work on Torment was crucial.

The game will use all-new rules for skills, character creation and combat. Full-scale work on the game will begin after Wasteland 2's planned release date (still scheduled for October 2013). There will be another Kickstarter campaign further down the line to help fund the game ahead of time.

Since Planescape: Torment is one of my favourite RPGs of all time (the computer game equivalent of Gene Wolfe), this is a project that I'll be watching with great interest.

Gollancz to publish three ELITE novels

Gollancz have announced that they will be publishing three novels based on the Elite series of computer games in 2014.

The new Elite game, Elite: Dangerous (the fourth in the thirty-year-old series), recently passed its funding goal on Kickstarter, ending with more than £1.5 million raised for game development. The title is expected to be released by mid-2014. To help the game reach its goal Gollancz pledged a significant sum on Kickstarter to buy the rights to publish three novels based on the Elite universe.

Gollancz had already been in discussions with David Braben and Frontier Studios about adding the original Elite tie-in novella, The Dark Wheel, to its SF Gateway online store. The Dark Wheel is notable as it was written by the late Robert Holdstock, best-known for his Mythago Wood series of novels. The Dark Wheel was packaged with the original BBC Micro release of Elite in 1984 (I still have a copy in a box somewhere). Frontier: Elite II, released in 1992, was also accompanied by a book of short stories entitled Tales of Life on the Frontier. Whether this will be reprinted at some point is unknown (but unlikely; it was not as good as Holdstock's novella).

The three novels will be published in 2014. The identities of the potential writers have not yet been revealed.

ELITE 4 Kickstarter announced

David Braben and Frontier Developments have put up a Kickstarter page for Elite: Dangerous, the long-awaited fourth game in the Elite series.

In visual terms, this was 1984's answer to Crysis II.

The original Elite was released in 1984 on the BBC Micro and is one of the most famous, seminal and game-changing titles of all time. It was an open-universe game in which you took a spaceship and could trade and fight your way across eight galaxies and some 2,000 star systems, all in (wireframe) 3D. It was the first major 3D game and one of the first games to give you total freedom in how you approached playing it. The sequel, Frontier: Elite II was released in 1993 and featured filled-in 3D graphics, multiple controllable spacecraft, an even vaster universe (hundreds of millions of procedurally-generated star systems in a - somewhat - accurate recreation of the Milky Way) and the ability to land on planets. The third game, First Encounters: Frontier II was released in 1995 and was notable for the number of bugs present in the game, resulting in a lawsuit between the developers and the publisher.

Braben has been teasing fans with the possibility of an Elite IV for many years before announcing this Kickstarter project. Braben indicates that raising funds the traditional way has been difficult, and he's only been able to spare a few developers to work on the project in moments of spare time, hence the decision to go down the Kickstarter route.

So far, mixed feelings. On the one hand, Elite was a seminal, brilliant game, a total gamechanger and one of the biggest steps forward in the history of the form. Frontier was also a very solid game, even if its ambition exceeded its grasp. However, the Kickstarter page is scant on details about the proposed title: no graphics or videos have been posted, which is odd for a game that's been in development (even if at a low ebb) for several years already. So far the only hard info that's been released is that the game will have modern graphics (as you'd expect) and some form of multiplayer component (as you'd expect). Otherwise there seems little to distinguish it from the X series of space sims or Chris Roberts's recently-announced Star Citizen (or even EVE Online, though presumably Elite IV will have direct 'twitch' controls rather than the mouse-driven interface of that title).

Still, with 10% of the funding already raised within hours of the announcement and even the BBC running a news story on it, it looks likely that this will be funded. Certainly a project worth keeping an eye on.

PROJECT ETERNITY smashes funding goals

As covered previously, Obsidian Entertainment have been working on a brand-new, 'old-school' RPG with the working title Project Eternity. The game is heavily influenced and inspired by their own classic games (when they were working as Black Isle), such as Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale and the early Fallout games, as well as those of their associated companies, such as BioWare's Baldur's Gate titles. To help fund the title, Obsidian requested fans to pledge $1.1 million via the Kickstarter crowdfunding website.

Click for massive version.

A month later, the Kickstarter has come to an end with Obsidian having raised $3,986,929 via the website, plus an additional $140,099 in PayPal contributions. The result being that the game achieved all of its planned stretch goals and will now be radically enhanced as a result. This includes the game now shipping on PC, Mac and Linux platforms, in multiple languages and with several added areas (including a whole new city and a major, 14-level dungeon complex).

The game is tentatively set for release in April 2014.

Red Eagle fail (again) to make a WHEEL OF TIME game

More than two years ago, it was reported that Red Eagle had signed a deal with Obsidian Entertainment to make a Wheel of Time computer roleplaying game for release on PC and console platforms. Chris Avellone, the well-respected creator of Planescape: Torment and a key writer on games like Fallout 2, New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, Icewind Dale and the forthcoming Wasteland 2 and Project: Eternity, was reported to be working on the initial ideas for the game. Fans and even gamers who had never heard of Wheel of Time were intrigued.

Then nothing. Obsidian moved onto several projects. There was excitement when they reported they were working on a major franchise tie-in game, but this turned out to be a South Park title (due out in spring 2013). More recent reports emerged explaining what had happened: Red Eagle's responsibility had been to find a publisher to fund development of the game. Despite signing a distribution agreement with Electronic Arts in 2009, they were unable to procure funding for the game itself. The last (unofficial) word from the Obsidian camp was that they are not working on the game now, and do not expect to be working on it any time soon.

Then, in a move so low-key that barely any Wheel of Time fan sites even mentioned it, Red Eagle announced they were partnering with Jet Set Games to make at least two WoT games for mobile devices such as phones and tablets. Since almost no-one gives a toss about mobile gaming, the lack of any interest whatsoever was unsurprising. Red Eagle then made the curious decision to put the first game, Banner of the Rising Sun, on Kickstarter, expecting Wheel of Time fans to flock to support the game. Unsurprisingly, they did not. After asking for $450,000 (for a mobile game, remember), Red Eagle had to withdraw the campaign after less than $3,000 was pledged (an unmitigated disaster, in Kickstarter terms).

There has been a sense that Red Eagle's expectations for their WoT projects have been 'unrealistic' (such as their continued, futile insistence on a film over a TV series adaptation), but this situation takes it to a whole new level. Mobile games should never cost $450,000 to produce, not unless it's a tie-in with a Mass Effect or Halo game or something (and even then that's a stretch). For their Kickstarter Obsidian asked for $1.1 million to make a massive, proper PC RPG taking tens of hours to complete and featuring hundreds of thousands of words of writing. Half that for a casual game to play whilst bored on the train is sheer lunacy. The fact alone that Red Eagle were also unable to raise funding for a proper game based on a series that has outsold (overall and - just - per-volume) A Song of Ice and Fire at a time when epic fantay is on fire is perplexing, but then following it up with a gambit that was never in a million years going to pay off is something that moves us into the realm of the truly baffling.

Creators of the greatest RPGs of all time collaborate on new game

Obsidian Entertainment have announced their next big RPG: a fantasy game called Project Eternity (working title). This game will be an isometric, old-school RPG that draws heavily on their old D&D games using the Infinity Engine (the Icewind Dale series and the legendary Planescape: Torment).

However, tired of working for publishers who either don't do proper Q&A on their games (resulting in the bug-filled mess of Alpha Protocol), rush them out in an incomplete state (Knights of the Old Republic II) or refuse to pay them a bonus by failing to hit a ludicrously arbitrary Metacritic score by one point despite selling millions of copies (Fallout: New Vegas), Obsidian have decided to take this one to the fans. Via Kickstarter, Obsidian are asking for $1.1 million to help fund the game. They're already at $300,000 less than a day after starting the project.

The creative forces behind the game include Chris Avellone, the writer of Planescape: Torment; Tim Cain, the creator of the Fallout franchise; and Josh Sawyer, the project lead on the excellent New Vegas (who infamously disapproved of the game being somewhat 'softened' for console players and released his own, more hardcore mod for the PC version of the game). They hope to release the game in early 2014.

Kotaku interview Avellone here about the project, whilst GameBanshee talk to Obsidian studio head Feargus Urquhart here.

UPDATE: As of 24 hours later, the amount raised stands at $1,083,000, and should hit the target within a few hours (with 31 days still to go). Obsidian have already said that any money they make over the $1.1 million will go to making the game even more impressive, and some projections are now suggesting they could make upwards of four times the amount they asked for.