A few of you may have noticed the announcement the other day of Shadow of the Eternals for the WiiU and PC, but if you're like me you may not have noticed that it's not a done deal.
Shadow of the Eternals has been labelled a "spiritual successor" to the class Gamecube game Eternal Darkness by director of both titles, Denis Dyack. A quick look of the first 9 minutes of the game shows that it appears to have an awful lot in common with the original, including exact locations and according to information on the Precursor games website they have even been given access to the original game assets.
The game is eschewing the usual develop/publisher dynamic in favour of a crowd-funding model which Denis Dyack hopes will keep creative control firmly in the hands of the developers and allow an unprecedented level of fan input into the game's creation. The plan is to release the games in episodes, following very much in the foosteps of the chapters found in the Gamecube title.
In order for development to commence on this Cryengine 3-based title, Precursor games needs to raise $1.5 million in the next 35 days which can only be achieved through the donations of fans eager to see this concept become a reality. For those unfamiliar with crowd-funding, your donations don't go nowhere and in fact, depending on the amount that you donate, will entitle you to a free version of the game upon its completion among other goodies. The rewards scale according to how much you contribute.
If the requisite $1.5 milllion is not raised in the appointed timeframe all donations will be returned but I would strongly advise checking out the Precursor website for more details before contributing any money. If more than $1.5 million is raised the possiblity remains that the title could appear on other platforms besides the WiiU and PC.
I personally will be doing my bit, I just see it as no different than making down-payment on a game that I would really like to purchase and I'm a big fan of the original. Additionally I am a fan of anything that wrests power from the big publishers and places back in the hands of the creative minds in the industry.
To check out the first nine minutes of the game.
Check out the interview with Denis Dynack.
Shadow of the Eternals info on Precursor's site.
http://www.precursorgames.com/shadowoftheeternals/
Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter page.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/617502838/shadow-of-the-eternals?ref=live
