The story shall remain unsung (sorry)
Remember Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians, the Kickstarter dream project from Yasumi Matsuno (director of Final Fantasy Fucking Tactics, Final Fantasy XII, Tactics Ogre, and Vagrant Goddamn Story), Hitoshi Sakimoto (composer for all of the above), and Alexander O. Smith (translator for all of the above)? If just hearing the names of those games is enough to get you all twitterpated, you were the primary demographic for that crowdfunding attempt, and you might never play the finished product.
Playdek, the developer tasked with creating Unsung Story, has updated backers less and less since the game’s announcement. There were 40 updates in 2014, eight in 2015, and one today. There were murmurs of troubled development, but Playdek always popped out of the woodwork to say “Hey! It’s still happening! We promise!” Not this time.
Today’s update begins with an apology for the four month delay since the last update. Then Playdek drops the bomb: “We have had some development setbacks that are affecting our timeline and progress on the game, while also affecting what we need to do in the immediate future as a company.” Since the previous backer update, the team lost a few key staff members. Playdek now only has “one internal team capable of working on a single project, and for the financial strength of the company we need to focus on a few products in the near term that have the ability to get to a retail release before Unsung Story is able to.”
This isn’t a permanent goodbye. Playdek is still seeking outside development help. It can’t make any promises, and “at this time [it does] not have an update as to what the new release window for development rollout will be.” The launch window will be updated if any new circumstances arise.
On the update page, most of the backers are either calling for refunds or swearing off crowdfunding entirely. Whether this project will be miraculously saved or left die remains to be seen.
Game Development Update [Kickstarter]
