Chronicles of Elyria, the #1 hyped RPG on MMORPG.com, has launched its Kickstarter campaign, and it has already funded nearly $400,000 of the $900,000 it’s asking for. This early surge brings back memories of Divinity: Original Sin 2’s campaign, which quickly surpassed its $500,000 in the first few days on Kickstarter, in the end raising roughly $2,000,000.
However, the main difference between the two games is that Soulbound Studios doesn’t have any previous games to show off to potential backers. Divinity: Original Sin 2, developed by Larian Studios, already had the critically acclaimed prequel Divinity: Original Sin on its resume. We’ll find out soon enough whether or not the fact that Chronicles of Elyria is Soulbound Studios’ first project impacts the campaign.
That being said, Soulbound Studios has come to Kickstarter fully prepared. They didn’t launch the campaign until they had a playable demo, a combat demo, and “substantial development to show.” Although the playable demo has not been released yet, the combat demo (released at PAX east) is available on YouTube, showcasing the game’s fencing combat.
Chronicles of Elyria’s most highly-anticipated features is its aging and dying mechanism; your character will grow old over the course of 10-14 months, “leaving their mark on history.” Two other features I’m excited for are the “offline player characters”, which will keep your character in-game from the moment of creation using AI, and the omission of a world and mini-map. It really is “Survival meets MMORPG”, as touted in the Kickstarter page. They’ve also added on the bottom of the Kickstarter page that Chronicles of Elyria is a project that comes “FROM gamers FOR gamers.” “WE want to play this game, so we turn to YOU to help make that happen.”
Track Chronicles of Elyria’s progress on our campaign calendar.
