I’ve been known on several occasions to back a Kickstarter project purely on nostalgia, and in the case of Cyan’s latest opus Obduction, this is certainly no exception. We’ve covered development before, but haven’t really delved that deep into the years-long cycle. With the latest update finally revealing a set release date, we’d like to take the time to look back at this first person sci-fi adventure game.
First off, it had been mentioned in a previous update that the launch of Obduction would be sometime in June thanks to a trailer posted a few months ago. However, like most game projects seeking funds through Kickstarter, this tentative date has been pushed back an extra month to July 26th. It isn’t that much of an extended wait, one that most backers seem to be willing to accept, myself included. After all, you only have one chance to impress your audience.
The reasons for this delay are numerous, and are detailed in the update, but the main things to take out of this is that they want to finish polishing the game for release, as well as bypass the deluge of June announcements. That’s completely understandable, and I have yet to see any complaints about their decisions beyond the controversial choice to work on extra content while waiting on a publisher deal that ultimately fell through.
I had reached out to the developers of Obduction in regards both to the issue with the publisher and the development of the game itself, but I haven’t heard back from them. I was told this was due to them being in crunch mode, which I can get behind. They want to finish off the game so it gets released in a timely manner. Still, it would have been nice for them to have taken a few minutes to answer my questions that are as of now left unanswered.
As it is, I’m still excited to see Obduction finally released, and I can’t wait to get my hands on my copy (both digital and physical), even with the extra month’s delay. As I’ve said before I’m a huge fan of the Myst series and look forward to seeing what everyone at Cyan has come up with. Still, the whole publisher/extra content thing has me wondering just how much of the work they’ve done in that six month timeframe is still going into the final game and how much is being left on the cutting room floor. I tried to ask them about it, but of course haven’t heard an answer for one way or the other.
One thing I do know is that the original vision should still be completely intact, and it would have been great to see the demo being shown off at conventions. Unfortunately, I would have had to have attended said convention to get a glimpse beyond a couple videos and some screenshots. In any event, I know that in roughly two months time I’ll be able to experience the whole thing in its glory. The only question is will Obduction stand up to those that have come before?
