Originally released in 1992, Ultima Underworld was met with critical acclaim for melding elements of FPS with the more traditional aspects of RPGs in order to create an RPG the likes of which many people hadn’t seen before. After one sequel, the game faded into a distant memory as it ended up being put into the vaults of its publisher and otherwise forgotten about.
However, the original developers eventually decided to breathe more life into an almost forgotten franchise, and spent 20 years trying to gain back the rights of the Underworld franchise, and, once they had said rights, they launched a Kickstarter in order to help finish making a new game to add to the already acclaimed Underworld franchise, and that game is called Underworld Ascendant.
Underworld Ascendant: The Three Main Factions
Less than a week before the campaign is set to finish, Underworld Ascendant, whose developers have set up Otherside Entertainment to make the game, has surpassed its original $600,000 goal and seems to be well on its way to reaching many of its stretch goals, which you can see in the image below. Underworld Ascendant, with just the funding it has so far – $612,006 as of this writing – looks to be an amazing game, with some pretty great features.
- Exquisitely Realized Underworld– Plunge into The Stygian Abyss: dark, ripe with dangers, full of ancient secrets to discover. A vast subterranean fantasy world made startlingly real and alive.
- Dynamic Factions– Become embroiled in an epic plot, as rival factions vie for dominance in struggles that ebb and flow across The Stygian Abyss. Your choices will alter the outcome in subtle and dramatic ways.
- Improvisation Engine– Delight in player-authored gameplay taken to a whole new level, with a suite of technologies that empower you to solve challenges with astonishing ingenuity. Be the ‘MacGyver’ of a fantasy world.
- Hero to Call Your Own– Jump right in as a Fighter, Thief or Mage. Then as your Avatar grows, freely mix and match across any skills to develop a unique hero, tailored to your style of play.
- Pushing Boundaries– Stretch Goals will innovate on co-op play with a friend; letting you build your own corner of The Stygian Abyss; and more.
Underworld Ascendant Stretch Goals
Speaking about the stretch goals in an update to the Kickstarter page after Underworld Ascendant reached its main funding goal, Paul Neurath – who was presumably speaking for the entire team – was thrilled the game achieved what it has so far, and had this to say:
“Once it became apparent that we would not necessarily be zooming up and past the $1.2M stretch goal, we decided that it made more sense to break out the $150,000 big stretch goals into 3 smaller $50,000 chunks each. Breaking it out like this gives the community a better chance to reach at least 1 or 2 of the 3 original features within whatever stretch goal we end up in, rather than making it an all-or-nothing proposition.
“We have also taken this as an opportunity to shift around a couple of the features. Most notably, we swapped the Necropolis and Haunt, with the Underswamp and Lizardmen. These are both very similar scoped features. We made the swap because we’ve seen a lot of chatter about the Lizardmen, which seem to be a fan favorite, and we wanted to up the odds that they would get reached.”
The Kickstarter campaign is due to finish on March 6, and can be found here.
