Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a recently revealed JRPG for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC. It’s a spiritual successor to the Suikoden franchise, a popular role-playing game series developed by Konami – with its last release being Suikoden V on the PlayStation 2. It’s being created by Rabbit & Bear Studios, a developer consisting of many who have worked on Suikoden in the past, like writer and designer Junko Kawano and director Junichi Murakami. Suidoken’s creator Yoshitaka Murayama serves as the game’s director.
A teaser trailer for the game was released on July 24, showcasing the game’s unique combat as well as its attractive blend of 2D and 3D animation – a tactic also employed by the hugely popular Switch JRPG Octopath Traveler. Like Suidoken, Eiyuden Chronicle will feature a huge cast of 100 characters, as well as several mini-games and other features.
Eiyuden Chronicle’s Kickstarter went live on July 27, and within three hours of its release, it reached its goal of ¥53,808,516 ($509,713). The pledges just keep coming, and the number is going up every minute.
“Thank you so much to all our backers for the incredible outpour of support! Within an incredibly short amount of time, we’ve been able to hit our minimum goal here on Kickstarter, which means that Eiyuden Chronicle will be a reality!” posted developer Rabbit & Bear Studios on the Kickstarter’s updates page. The game’s official Twitter page also tweeted out to thank backers for helping fully fund the project so quickly.
While Kickstarter hasn’t always shown itself to be successful with gaming ideas (projects like the Ouya or Mighty No. 9 come to mind), Eiyuden Chronicle has shown that with the right idea and target audience, smaller independent studios can still find major success.