Rabbit & Bear Studios have announced a “Town Building RPG companion Game” as a stretch goal for their crowd-funded Suikoden veteran developer-made Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes.
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 campaign now stands at over $4.3 million USD. It has become the 3rd most funded video game on Kickstarter. This places it behind Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which raised $5.5 million USD.
We also stated in our prior coverage that 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. A recent update also revealed that the highest backers came from Japan, and that four other Kickstarter games had been funded through their weekly Kickstarter Spotlights.
Achieved stretch goals now include a Back Story Novel DLC, a Hero Mode, an Asynchronous Mode, and a Fortress Asset pack DLC. You can find the rundown on some of these below.
- “Hero Mode – Plumb the depths of special randomized dungeons with your chosen party and take on unique challenges not found elsewhere in Allraan. Plan your team wisely, as certain members will be stronger against specific foes. Be careful though, because your party members will tire over time, making fights harder as you explore deeper into the unknown!
- Asynchronous Mode – At this stretch goal, you will be able to share your party and fortress town as AI-controlled data with other players, allowing them to battle your army without you even being online.
- Fortress Town Asset Pack – This set of visual assets will allow you to customize your fortress in the style of a Japanese or Chinese castle, setting you apart from the rest! This is the third piece of FREE Digital DLC for backers.”
The now revealed final stretch goals include a Battle Defense Mode ($4.4 million USD), Another Story: Seign DLC ($4.5 million USD). Most curious of all is the final streach goal at an unknown amount; the creation of a companion game.
As stated in the campaign’s most recent update, the Town Creation RPG will be made in partnership with Natsume-Atari (Harvest Moon, Ninja Warriors, Wild Guns). The project was explained further.
- “It will release before the main game, which will hopefully hold you over during the excruciatingly long 2 and a half year wait.
- It will feature a variety of different “lifestyle” mini-games that will allow you to gather a wide variety of different materials to build up your town/farm/house.
- The goal is to allow these materials to transfer over to Eiyuden Chronicle allowing you a head-start at crafting some of the different items/armor/etc in the game.
- You will get to meet a few of the characters that appear in Eiyuden Chronicle and get to know them a bit earlier.
- There may be some kind of battle mechanic, but we are still talking it over.
Some production points of note:
- Allowing a partner like Natsume-Atari to work on this game helps us make something we love without worrying about too much wear and tear on the team.
- The goal is to share as many assets/designs/etc. so that it will be an efficient production.”
Citing the fees that would come with making the game DLC, the decision was made to offer to backers who increase their pledge by $7.
“Console platform holders will charge us 30% of the base price of the game to purchase DL codes so that we can give you the game for free. That means we’d be out a HUGE amount of money if we didn’t charge something to at least cover that cost.
Based on the content of the game, we are expecting whatever publisher we end up working with to charge around 15-20 dollars for this title. 30% of that would be between 5-7 dollars. It’s a cost we can’t do anything about, so we are asking backers to up their pledge by 7 dollars if you want this companion title.
It’s a hard decision to make but making the world of Eiyuden Chronicle bigger and providing people with an early taste is our last dream. It will still be much, much cheaper than the retail price, so thank you for understanding.
If you are interested in this content, please add 7 dollars to your pledge. Due to the nature of this and the fact it is a final goal, we know it’s a bit last minute so we will try to allow backers the chance to purchase this game even after the campaign ends.”
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.
