Put down the pitchforks and let me explain. Infinite Legacy, an open-world RPG where the player determines the story, was originally funded on Kickstarter in January 2015. What started as a fun side-project ended up raising $6,896 before growing and changing over 2 years in development. Through all the improvements and reworking, Infinite Legacy’s developers managed to burn through the majority of that funding, but that’s not what brought them back to Kickstarter.
“If you are looking to back a project that is entirely reliant on being funded, then please spend your money elsewhere,” Alex Connowell explains on the new campaign page. “All money spent on this Kickstarter will be to help improve an already existing product that is Infinite Legacy.”
This was further clarified in an update to the first campaign. Connowell stressed that the project will continue regardless of future funding. Previous backer rewards will still be honored. The dev team doesn’t expect backers to contribute additional funds, unless they feel so inclined.
Original party selection
“This is not a situation where you will be getting a different game from the new Kickstarter or vice versa, the new Kickstarter really is just a way to try and raise funds to create additional content for the one single Infinite Legacy game,” Connowell wrote, in response to a concerned backer.
Polite and Frugal
The new campaign, aptly named Infinite Legacy [Mastered], is already halfway to their modest $1,000 goal. I feel pretty safe saying that if the developers were running some sort of scam, they would be going about it in the most polite and frugal way possible.
Updated party selection
An extra thousand bucks in game development is nothing. Considering that the size and scope of the project has grown considerably during development (their original campaign goal was only $250) it’s not unreasonable to see if anyone else wants to back the project.
It certainly helps that Infinite Legacy actually sounds like a cool game. Players assume the role of a team of mercenaries. You’re not “chosen” to save the lands from some great evil or set on an epic world altering quest. You just try to survive as best you can in a world of NPC’s who are all doing the same.
NPC’s can be just as good, bad, trustworthy, or bloodthirsty as anyone trying to survive and achieve their goals. Players must decide how to navigate tricky situations, hardships, and setbacks and those choices influence the world around them.
Infinite Legacy’s updated timeline has its release estimated for May 2017. Updates are shared across both campaigns, so old and new backers alike can stay in the loop. Considering how proactive the devs have been about transparency with the new campaign I’m willing to set my torch aside for the time being. Of course, if they return for thirds they might find themselves on the wrong side of the double dipping list.
