Crowfall

While many indie developers find ways to work half time on their games while they're still small, Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites are always full of gaming-related projects. Crowfall is one of those games whose development has been entirely6 Kickstarter-funded. Of course, it is never a safe bet to go for this route, especially for the backers of the project. Amazing games like Hollow Knight were funded on Kickstarter, but there are some not-so-good titles to come out from there too.

Even major game directors and teams have used the platform, such as the case of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, the biggest fund ever collected for video games on the platform. now but what can we expect from Crowfall? Is it aiming too high in the sky? Well, we'll talk about it here.

Funding and development

There are more than enough reasons for backers to be skeptical when it comes to crowdfunded video games. There are plenty of cases where they promise too much and deliver too little, and there are many where they don't even deliver at all. It is a dangerous bet to put money into these titles, even more, if there's not much information or updates on the development of the project.

Crowfall Kickstarter campaign was successfully completed in March 2016, when they received over $1.7 million, even though their original goal was just $800k. This is without even counting the funds received from other fundraising events and websites. With total funding of nearly $40 million as of 2020, which is a pretty big number already.

In the early days the development was very mysterious, but as time has passed the game has grown bigger and bigger. We've even seen displays of how the game should be once it's released, and there's already a beta registration for first-comers into the game. Sadly there's no clear release date for the full game.

About the game

Crowfall promises to revolutionize the MMO genre by changing the very basics and adding tons of new mechanics. It combines the elements of MMORPG and MMORTS games, and it also gives you an option to choose the game style you want. There’s as usual, a campaign mode, or so to say, but it really does give you a lot of liberty to build your own story.

It's been a while now since the beta process started, but we've seen it go through a lot of changes. One of the most interesting things so far is just how fluid the whole game feels. There are even scenery destruction and real-time damage to structures. It's very detailed and thanks to the voxels it uses, you can build and destroy castles. There's a player-driven economy so that you can even work yourself out to build a fortune and become a real business person.

Crowfall really seems to be a very impressive game, and it's aiming really high, but it might just be flying too close to the Sun for its own good. While it is true that there's a beta for this game, it is still far from finished, and it's been quite a long time already since it's been overfunded. After all, they only wanted $800k from their crowdfunding, and now they are closer to $40 million. Now half it's been almost 6 years and we still have no clear release date for the game.

Pros

• Tons of content
• Different gameplay modes
• Interesting integration of new mechanics into the genre
• Varied classes and game styles
• Great visuals
• Nice art

Cons

• Developers are not clear enough as to the release date
• It’s still glitchy
• Doesn’t live up to the hype at the moment