As promised, Precursor Games officially launched their second Kickstarter campaign for Shadow of the Eternals today. In doing so the group of former Silicon Knights employees have unquestionably proved that it will take a whole lot more than Denis Dyack’s baggage, two failed crowdfunding efforts, and a few child pornography charges to stop the studio from potentially infringing on Nintendo’s Eternal Darkness sanity meter gameplay trademark.
The premise behind Shadow of the Eternals is basically the same as it was the first time around (Precursor is selling it as a spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness, that will “span thousands of years of history,” and shatter players’ perception of reality “as they try to balance the mechanics of combat, magick, and exploration as they progress through the adventure”), however, there are a few notable differences in the new Kickstarter campaign.
First, Precursor has overhauled the entire scope of the project from a $1.5 million goal that would be used to fund one episode of twelve, to a $750,000 goal that will fund a single 8-10 hour game. It is unclear how the studio manged to adjust their budget from $1.5 million for one (presumably short) episode to $750K for the entire game, but it is probably best not to ask too many questions at this point.
The other big addition to the new Kickstarter for Shadow of the Eternals is that David Hayter (the voice of Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid franchise) has joined the cast as the voice of the game’s main protagonist Paul Becker. Interestingly enough, Hayter worked on Eternal Darkness back in 2002 (according to his IMDB page) as the voice of Roman Legionnaire 1, Roman Legionnaire 2, and Angkor Thom Guard.
At any rate, the new Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter has raised $67,340 in pledges from 1,654 backers as of the time of publication. We will keep an eye on the campaign’s progress and let you know if it keeps up the pace or trails off in a few days.
