“If we didn’t believe in the game, we wouldn’t have agreed to license the IP to Sushee.”
Indie developer Sushee has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter today, seeking to raise $114,106 for the development of Fear Effect Sedna. Square Enix has publicly supported the campaign as part of its Collective program. The game will be developed for PC and Mac, with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases added at $250,000.
“We first announced our intention to open up dormant Western IP right at the start of Collective’s life back in 2013,” explained Phil Elliott, creator and project lead for the platform, in a press release “We felt that last year was the right time to go ahead with that, and Sushee – although busy with the development of Goetia at the time – was quick to register a keen interest in the idea.”
Elliott stated that Sushee “put together a great pitch that combined a real love of the original games with a new take and appropriate budget.”
The press release states that the asking amount will not be enough to create the game, but that Sushee will be offsetting that by investing its own funds into the project. If successfully funded, Fear Effect Sedna will be published by Square Enix Collective. If the campaign doesn’t reach its goal, development will not go forward.
“If we didn’t believe in the game, we wouldn’t have agreed to license the IP to Sushee,” Square Enix explains in the press release. “The aim of this process is to open up dormant IP to act as a stepping stone for developers; not because we don’t want to commit our own funds. But – if the developer is raising funds for production, they will get more benefit. On the other hand, if Square Enix funded the game, then the developer benefits much less…which misses the point of the initiative.”
As of the time of this writing, Fear Effect Sedna, which is expected to release in Q2 of 2017, has raised more than $37,000.
