Rabbit & Bear Studios have announced their crowd-funded Suikoden veteran developer-made Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes has less than 48 hours for their Kickstarter campaign; raising over $3.86 million USD.
As stated in our prior coverage, the 2.5D JRPG’s development team includes Yoshitaka Murayama writing the story (Suikoden, Suikoden II), Junko Kawano handling character design (Suikoden, Suikoden IV), and Osamu Komuta handling “system design and direction” (Suikoden Tactics, Suikoden Tierkreis).
The Kickstarter campaign launched July 27th, and sought $500,000 USD. Despite issues with the entire Kickstarter website going down, the campaign soon blew past that in a matter of hours, achieving over $1 million USD later that day.
Since our prior coverage, the game has become the 5th most funded video game on Kickstarter. This places it behind Pillars of Eternity, which raised almost $4 million USD. As stated in the press release (via email) the game has become the most funded video game on Kickstarter in the last 5 years, and the most funded video game in Japan of all time.
The achieved stretch goals include the Another Story: Marisa DLC. The 5-10 hour adventure focuses on Marisa (“one of the central characters in the story”) seeing the world of Allraan and its problems through her eyes.
As stated in the press release (via email) the final stretch goals are as follows. Two of these goals have already been reached.
“$3.8M ‘Theatre Content’ – A new gameplay element that adds the 7th and final job reward tier to the campaign
$3.85M ‘Kunoichi’ – A female ninja selected via fan vote
$4M ‘Backstory Novel’ – A DLC digital novel crafted by Yoshitaka Murayama
$4.25M ‘Hero Mode’ – A randomly generated dungeon that features fatigue and requires multiple upgraded parties to reach the lowest of levels”
There are 5 further stretch goals at unknown values, with two of them being DLC.
Finally, sold out Premium Tiers will re-open over each 24 hour mark, one back each day. In addition, two Mega Premium tiers will be added. One for backers to add their face to a fish, and a physical plush version that speaks 10 phrases from the game, (voiced by one of the game’s voice actors).
The second will not only allow users to create an NPC, but should there be a sequel, that NPC will re-appear in that game as well. That tier is ¥750,000 JPY (est. $6,945 USD).
Murayama also shared his thoughts in a video and via press release. You can find both below.
“When we first set off down this path it was a new challenge for us. We knew so little about Kickstarter and of course, in the back of our minds, we had the anxiety of wondering if gamers really wanted something like this.
A Kickstarter campaign isn’t about selling a slew of units—It’s about having a plan and concept that is validated and supported by the fans. It’s a call for help to the most passionate supporters to fight alongside as we develop this new entity called Eiyuden Chronicle. Many of our supporters have even said, ‘It feels like we are a part of making this game together.’ And yes, I feel that statement is absolutely true.
We have character designs that are chosen by fans, group songs, and a wide variety of connective content. Being able to work with such passionate fans over the next two plus years to develop the game is going to be so much fun.
There isn’t a lot of time left in the campaign, but we truly hope you’ll be a hero and take this journey with us. Not only as fans, but as friends!”
There will be a live-stream in the last 4 hours of the campaign. It will feature Muryama, Kawano, Komuta, Murakami, as well as some secret guests.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes will launch Fall 2022 for Windows PC (via Steam), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and possibly Nintendo Switch.
Image: Kickstarter
