The latest update for Overload, the spiritual successor to Descent from developer Revival Productions, provides an unexpected surprise – all backers of at least $25 will receive a Steam code for Inferno 2 within a week of the Overload Kickstarter ending. A twin-stick shooter, Inferno 2 was well received on iOS and Android before being released for PC in June 2015.
This follows a number of other major updates for Overload recently including the announcement that Mac and Linux support will be included by default (rather than as a stretch goal), addition of mod tools to the stretch goals, the launch of their forums, Overload’s debut on Steam Greenlight and most crucially the news of a multiplayer expansion free for all backers.
Overload is now entering the dreaded ‘slump’ period of a Kickstarter campaign and with a week gone has only raised a third of its $300,000 target. This would normally be seen as a pretty ominous sign, particularly as only 87 video game Kickstarters have ever raised $300,000 – as you can see from Cliqisit’s very own Data Archive. However Revival do seem to have anticipated this and as well as the staggered release of announcements they’re already preparing for a second promotional push including a Reddit AMA.
The biggest obstacle however remains the existence of Descent: Underground which completed a successful Kickstarter campaign in April 2015 and is already available as an Early Access title. There’s a real risk that many Descent fans who’ve already backed Underground (which also benefits from having the official Descent license) will be unwilling to pledge again for a similar title – although admittedly Underground is primarily a multiplayer game while Overload is focusing on a single-player campaign.
Looking at the Underground Kickstarter can give some encouragement to Revival though. As with Overload, Underground had an explosion of early interest in the media but at halfway through their campaign only had less than half the required funds raised. A steady stream of updates seemed to work the trick and allowed them to ride out the slump and creep over their target, so there’s a fair chance Overload could do the same.
I’ll be really honest and say i don’t understand what it is about.
Apparently it seems to be a space shooter..but i can only see underground background..
As for the ship..i can’t say for other but it doesn’t look like a ship to me.
Some sort of half mecha..(with no legs).
Hehe, I can understand that. Basically it’s a followup to the 90’s PC shooter Descent. Not Descent Freespace mind you. Descent was/is a shooter that has 360 degree movement. So it’s almost like an arcade space shooter, but in hallways and rooms you’d expect in something like Unreal. The genre never saw a ton of games even at its peak, but they were known for looking pretty and running super fast. Forsaken, another 90’s 360 shooter, was known for being the most over the top in the sense that its advertising campaign was infamous, it had all sorts of lights and colors (as compared to the brown and gray games out there at the time), and ran insanely fast.
The challenge I see with Overload is (as mentioned in the story) that there was a Kickstarter for a new Descent game not long ago. In addition to that Overload isn’t going to be multiplayer (might be some stretch goals I think), which is really strange since the entire point of Descent is that it was a great multiplayer game. It’s like if someone did a Kickstarter for a new version of Quake but advertised it as single player only.