Apocalypse Now game cancels Kickstarter to crowdfund on its own site

The Apocalypse Now video game’s Kickstarter campaign has been canceled — in its place, the developers will begin crowdfunding on their own website. “The new platform will serve as a rallying point for the community and represents the team’s long-term commitment to both funding the project and sharing details of the development process,” the developers explain.

The Kickstarter campaign originally launched on January 25th, with the goal of raising $900,000 to partially fund the game’s development. Described as an “immersive, psychedelic horror RPG,” the game version of Apocalypse Now is being created by a team of industry veterans who previously worked on series like Gears of War and Fallout, as well as successfully crowdfunded projects like Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera. It even has the blessing of director Francis Ford Coppola. “I’ve been watching video games grow into a meaningful way to tell stories,” he said when the campaign was first announced, “and I’m excited to explore the possibilities for Apocalypse Now for a new platform and a new generation.”

However, despite the experience and high-profile name, the game failed to make much of a dent on Kickstarter. With 10 days to go, the campaign managed to raise just over $170,000, well short of its $900,000 goal. On January 27th, the developers noted the campaign’s troubles in a message to backers:

When we launched this campaign, we made a mistake. We forgot that many of you have been disappointed by overreaching games and overreaching promises. We had stopped paying attention to the Kickstarter world, when we put our heads down and went to work on this full-steam about 18 months ago — first with documents and then with prototypes. Because we went upriver, we did not remember that those of you who love games and those of you who love Apocalypse Now would immediately treat the announcement not with excitement, but with concern.

The $900,000 goal represented about one-fifth of the actual development costs. The team had originally planned to launch an ongoing crowdfunding campaign after the Kickstarter with the goal of raising the full amount over a longer period of time. “The Apocalypse Now team plans to raise $5 million to produce an authentic game that the people want to play,” game director Montgomery Markland said in a statement. The game is expected to be released in 2020.