505 Games have announced a release date delay for Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, but what seems to be prequel game Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising.
As previously reported, the 2.5D JRPG’s development team includes Yoshitaka Murayama writing the story (Suikoden, Suikoden II), Junko Kawano handling character design (Suikoden, Suikoden IV), and Osamu Komuta handling “system design and direction” (Suikoden Tactics, Suikoden Tierkreis).
The Kickstarter campaign launched July 27th, 2020 and sought $500,000 USD. Despite crashing the Kickstarter website, the campaign soon blew past that in a matter of hours, achieving over $1 million USD later that day. The game would later raise over $4.5 million USD; achieving all stretch goals, and becoming the biggest video game Kickstarter campaign in 2020.
You can find the announcement trailer below.
A Kickstarter backer emailed shared with Niche Gamer has revealed the game is still coming to platforms outside of PC and Xbox.
“We know that an announcement like this can make people a little nervous about whether the game will still be released on their console of choice,” the email explained, “and we wanted to reassure everyone that the game will arrive on every major console at the same time, as promised!”
Murayama also gave a message explaining why they teamed up with Microsoft.
“I’d like to give a comment on the Game Pass deal with Microsoft that was announced at the show and give a big surprise report to everyone.
We at R&B Studios started this project to create Eiyuden Chronicle the way we would like it to be. We are not a big game company and started from almost nothing. So we needed a solution to secure the IP to our own game, and gain development funding while keeping that IP.
So, we approached our backers through crowdfunding, and all of you showed your support in a big way.
Of course, the $4million+ raised is a huge amount of money. The development of a game requires a lot of money, especially in the RPG genre, which makes it difficult to create new titles. We were continuing negotiations and efforts to secure funding even after the Kickstarter campaign ended.
Our success on Kickstarter was not just about funding: it also gave us confidence that we have so many passionate fans supporting us. As the result of all your support, we were able to secure a partnership with 505 Games.
This is exactly what we were hoping for, and 505 Games has never intervened in our creative process on developing Eiyuden Chronicle.
And now, we have received a huge offer from Microsoft to join Game Pass.
We decided to accept this offer and we believe this will ultimately be a positive push which will move the project of Eiyuden Chronicle forward. We are aiming to make Eiyuden Chronicle an enjoyable title for a long period of time.”
Murayama also confirmed that in addition to the previously confirmed Seign’s Story and Marisa’s Story DLC, a third DLC will be produced. This will also become a reward for all backers; something that will “symbolize the fact that Eiyuden Chronicle was started thanks to the enthusiastic support of the backers. DLC3 will be created in collaboration with you!”
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes will launch 2023 for Windows PC (via Steam), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising launches 2022.
