Developer Harebrained Schemes hopes to bring back the RPG classic Shadowrun in the form of Shadowrun Returns for tablets and PC. Of course they need the funding, so they’ve gone the way of Tim Schafer and Brian Fargo and launched a Kickstarter campaign to get the $400k worth of funding they need to start the project.
Lately, a growing trend among mid-sized developers is to fund projects with Kickstarter campaigns. Projects that may have previously been beyond the scope of what the developer could do financially are now within reach thanks to projects funded by fans. Double Fine’s Tim Schafer was the first noteworthy name to do so with his upcoming title Adventure. He smashed Kickstarter records. Brian Fargo raised half a million on his first day for Wasteland 2, and most recently Replay Games launched a campaign to raise $500k for the development of a Leisure Suit Larry remake. It’s definitely changing how such developers can approach these projects and gauge the level of interest before they even start. Shadowrun is just the latest of these projects.
Many of us classic gamers remember the countless hours we spent with the SNES version, and try to forget the horror that was Shadowrun on the Xbox 360. It seems the developers know that, as they plan to make it a 2D turn-based single-player game. If anything, they are catering to us iPad-toting old fart gamers.
Original idea man Jordan Weisman is behind the project. You can watch his amusing Kickstarter pitch below. In it, you will hear a nice little shout out to Tim Schafer, a bit about the history of the franchise (and it’s many licensees) and even receive an apology for the Xbox 360 version.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613260297/shadowrun-returns/widget/video.html
[Via Kickstarter]