Canadian developer Precursor Games finally ironed things out with Kickstarter. It officially added support for that crowdfunding platform to help bring in cash to make a spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness.
The company is asking for $1.35 million on Kickstarter for Shadow of the Eternals, a survival-horror game with Lovecraftian elements. The studio already raised $155,000 on its own website. It is still aiming for a total of $1.5 million to pay for the development of the first season Shadow of the Eternals.
Previously, Precursor could not host a Kickstarter project because it did not have a U.S. or U.K. presence — that’s a requirement, according to Kickstarter’s guidelines.
Precursor Games comprises many former employees of developer Silicon Knights. That studio produced Eternal Darkness in 2002 for Nintendo’s GameCube. Fans always asked for a sequel, but Silicon Knights and Nintendo never partnered up for another one.
Silicon Knights is currently in turmoil. It lost a legal battle with Gears of War developer Epic Games over royalties relating to Epic’s Unreal game engine. Silicon Knights now owes $4.45 million to Epic. In response, it laid off most of its employees.
Now, the former Silicon Knights team is asking for help from its fans to pay for the development Shadow of the Eternals.
Like Eternal Darkness, Shadow of the Eternals will feature a large cast of characters all fighting against the coming of an eternal beast who threatens all of Earth. Precursor plans to release the title in 12 episodes on PC and Nintendo’s Wii U.
We reported last week that Precursor is struggling to maintain a strong funding pace. With just its own website, the developer was unlikely to reach its $1.5 million goal. It’s possible that involving Kickstarter could help with that.
After about an hour on Kickstarter, Shadow of the Eternals has $3,800 and 53 backers.