Top 10 Most Funded Kickstarter Games of 2015 So Far - Article
by Jared Katz , posted on 18 July 2015 / 14,246 Views
We are a little past halfway through 2015, so now's a good time to see which Kickstarter projects have dominated the first half of 2015.
Here are the ground rules for this list:
- Only funding via Kickstarter is counted.
- Only games that have been funded 100% can make the list.
- As long as the Kickstarter campaign ended after December 31st 2014 it is allowed on the list.
- The Kickstarter Funding Rank is the position it garnered on the Video Game section of Kickstarter.
10. Toejam and Earl: Back in the Groove
Total Funds: $508,638
Total Backers: 8,873
Kickstarter Funding Rank: 54th
After being absent from the world of video games since the days of the SEGA Genesis (I have mentally removed the Xbox version from my memory), the funky duo Toejam and Earl are ready for their comeback in Toejam and Earl: Back in the Groove. The game is being made by Humanature Studios (Doki Doki Universe), which is headed by creator Greg Johnson.
The Kickstarter campaign was able to hit three of its stretch goals, allowing for old school skins, the Hyperfunk Zone, and more playable characters such as Latisha and Earl’s Mom. The game currently has no exact release dat. It is set to release on Windows, Mac and Linux, though Humanature Studios hasn’t ruled out a future console port thanks to the simplicity of porting Unity titles.
Total Funds: $541,161
Total Backers: 5,819
Kickstarter Funding Rank: 50th
Kickstarter has become a haven for Visual Novels, and no developer has used the site better than Sekai Project, which has managed to fund seven VN localizations through Kickstarter. The company almost had two games in this top 10, but The Grisaia Trilogy fell short and took 11th place.
That leaves us with the popular IP Clannad, which will be officially brought over in English for the first time ever thanks to this successful Kickstarter campaign. There's actually a good chance you have heard of, or randomly seen a picture of, the Anime adaption of this particular Visual Novel.
The campaign was able to hit all three of its stretch goals, which included HD assets, the Clannad side stories, and the Clannad anthology manga. The game is set to release this fall on Steam for Windows PC.
Total Funds: $601,773
Total Backers: 8,164
Kickstarter Funding Rank: 45th
Some Kickstarter campaigns make it by the skin of their teeth. Descent: Underground happens to be one of them. It was just $1,774 from missing its goal, and if you don’t make your goal on Kickstarter you don't get any of the money pledged. Underground is newest entry in the classic space combat franchise Descent. Though it’s been 15 years since the last Descent, Descent: Underground is actually a prequel to the first two games.
The game will have multiplayer for the first time, and will be using VR technologies like the Oculus Rift to enhance the space pilot experience. Because of its close call, Descent: Underground didn’t hit any of its stretch goals. The game is expected to release on Windows, Mac, and Linux next spring.
Total Funds: $860,356
Total Backers: 13,987
Kickstarter Funding Rank: 29th
Have you noticed the trend of most of these titles being revivals or spiritual successors of older franchises that publisher would consider unprofitable? Well Underworld Ascendant is another of those, and it won’t be the last one on this list either. Underworld Ascendant is a spiritual successor to the dungeon crawling RPG Ultima Underworld. While the game will be a little bit visually different compared to Ultima, its inner workings and crafters are the same.
The Kickstarter campaign was able to hit five stretch goals, which include The Underswamp area, a Tracy Hickman novel, the Lizardmen race, companion creatures + enhanced music, and the Resonant Caves area. The game is set to release on Windows, Mac, and Linux in late 2016.
Total Funds: $1,204,726
Total Backers: 31,497
Kickstarter Funding Rank: 24th
Harebrained Schemes returned to Kickstarter with a pitch for a new Shadowrun and, as you could probably guess, the campaign was a massive success. Unlike most campaigns, Shadowrun: Hong Kong would have been made either way, but the Kickstarter campaign will allow to team to produce more content for the game.
It seems, however, that Harebrained Schemes didn’t anticipate the amount of support they would eventually get (ran out of stretch goals by the end). Here is what will be added to Shadowrun: Hong Kong thanks to the Kickstarter campaign: Enhanced player controls, animatic scene transitions, Racter joins your party, more animatic endings, Gobbet’s side mission, better sound, Gaichu joins your party, enhanced cyber, Is0bel’s side mission, expanded magic, Gaichu’s side mission, revamped matrix, and After Story Campaign (4-5 hours long). The game will release on Windows, Mac, and Linux later this summer.
Total Funds: $1,519,680
Total Backers: 33,741
Kickstarter Funding Rank: 21st
InXile entertainment are well-known veterans of Kickstarter and the former holders of the record for top-funded video game on Kickstarter. This time around the company decided to revive an old property that hasn’t seen a true game for over 27 years. The Bard’s Tale IV will include everything fans loved from the originals, including challenging dungeon crawling and Gaelic music.
The campaign was able to hit four of its stretch goals, including: enhanced companion system, enhanced crafting system, Monte Cook joins the staff and will create a dungeon, and the “RPG Super Team” (Bruce Cordell, Wolfgang Baur and Sean K Reynolds) will each design a dungeon. The Bard’s Tale IV will be releasing on Windows, Mac, and Linux in the fall of 2017.
Total Funds: $1,766,204
Total Backers: 16,936
Kickstarter Funding Rank: 18th
When you describe your new game as “Game of Thrones meets EVE Online”, you’re going to need a lot to back it up. While it’s hard to say until the product is in our hands, what we've seen of Crowfall so far makes me feel that they might just pull it off. Being an MMO game, the first question you want to know the answer to is, will it need a subscription? Luckily Crowfall is following the recent trend of Buy to Play; you just need to buy a single copy of the game and that’s it.
The game’s Kickstater campaign was a great success and it’s actually the only truly original IP in a sea of sequels and spiritual successors that makes up this list. Crowfall’s campaign was able to hit all of its stretch goals, including Female Centaurs, character mounts, VR (Oculus Rift and HTC Vive) support, Minotaur archetype, and combat-enabled pet companions. The game will be releasing on Windows PC this winter.
Total Funds: £2,090,104
Total Backers: 73,206
Kickstarter Funding Rank: 7th
While Banjo-Kazooie might never see the light of day again outside Rare Replay, the duos souls live on with Yooka-Laylee. This new collect-a-thon platformer is being made by Playtonic Games, which is made up of mostly ex-Rare employees. Your goal is to find Pagies (not Jiggies, nor related in any way whatsoever…) that will help unlock more of the world as you progress.
This new duo use the best of their natural abilities to create new type of moves that Banjo & Kazooie couldn’t dream of doing. The game will be lent the musical talents of David Wise (Donkey Kong Country) and Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie). Like some of the other games on this list, Yooka-Laylee was able to hit all of its stretch goals thanks to the massive fan support. Here are just some of the bonus extras that will make the game: Boss battles every level, transformations, 2-4 local multiplayer mini-games, an N64 shader, and an orchestral music score. The game is set to release for Windows, Mac, Linux, PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U in late 2016.
2. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Total Funds: $5,545,991
Total Backers: 64,867
Kickstarter Funding Rank: 2nd
Kickstarter has given life to countless Metroidvania titles over the years, and this year we got the granddaddy of them all, a true IGAVANIA. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night follows Miriam, an orphan who must battle her way through a demon infested castle in order to undo the curse placed on her body.
The game will feature classic Igavnaia mechanics, including various weapon types, crafting, and special abilities. Bloodstained will be Iga’s biggest game to-date and will contain over 1,600 rooms. Also, fear not, Michiru Yamane will be composing the soundtrack for the game.
The Kickstarter campaign was a massive success and took the top-funded video game spot at the time by quite some margin. The campaign also hit all of its stretch goals, which included a second playable character, cheat codes, local Co-op, Boss Rush Mode, Classic Mode, and Boss Revenge Mode. The game will be releasing on Windows, Mac, Linux, PS4, Vita, Xbox One, and Wii U in the spring of 2017.
Total Funds: $6,333,295
Total Backers: 69,320
Kickstarter Funding Rank: 1st
Bloodstained’s reign as the king didn’t last long. Apparently the only thing that can topple a starved fanbase is an even more starved fanbase! After years of waiting, hoping, praying, begging, and crying the impossible has happened - Shenmue III exists. Not only does it exist, it is now the highest funded video game on Kickstarter and 6th highest funded Kickstarter ever. With a base goal of $2,000,000, Shenmue III became a reality within a day of funding. It even broke Kickstarter for the first few hours of the campaign.
Shenmue III will finally end the untold saga that fans have been clamoring for in any form for the past decade. No matter what fate awaits Ryo and his quest for sailors, we can rest easy knowing that the saga many have been waiting for will finally be ending. While Shenmue III is one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns, it did only achieve about half of its stretch goals, which went all the way up to $11 million.
Here is everything (and it is a lot…) that will be added to the game thanks to these stretch goals: Shenmue 1 & 2 cinema shorts, Spanish translation, German translation, Italian Translation, French Translation, Rapport System, Skill Tree System, Baisha Village expanded Mini-Games, Baisha Village expanded Infiltration Mission, Baisha Village expanded additional quest, Baisha Village expanded battle event, Baisha Village expanded Perspective System, Portuguese translation, and Battle System Expanded Advance Free Battle. The game will be releasing on PC and PS4 in late 2017.
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I wish more of these projects that only release on PC would take note, of how much more money they could raise, if they released on consoles as well.
A lot of the games here that are PC only either cater entirely to the PC market (Bard's Tale) or had unreached stretch goals for console ports, so to be fair it's not like the existence of consoles helped back most of these games anyway.
Do you really think these projects never look at console markets? There is no guarantee that they would recoup the costs on a console. Consoles have a lot of licensing and testing costs, combine that with the porting cost and they "might" lose a ton of money. releasing to console is by no means a certainty for success.
I know which game will be added to the list next as #1. Just a clue: it will have Kojima's name on the box.
If Konami somehow brought back Silent Hills and crowd funded it, funding would absolutely skyrocket for the game, but no, Konami likes to blue ball it's fans
Konami is Konami.
Only one I backed was Yooka-Laylee. Can't wait for it.
Of all those, Bloodstained is definitely the one I'm looking forward the most.
Backed 5 game on the list : Underworld Ascendant, Shadowrun: Hong Kong ,Crowfall, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Shenmue III !
While i'm not trying to knock Shenmue's success, I definitely believe Bloodstained would have been top if it had been on a main stage like E3. Shenmue's campaign seemed slow even on the last day in comparison to Bloodstained. Either way though, both titles did absolutely fantastic.
Of many of those will turn out to be good?
