Koji Igarashi’s Kickstarter campaign for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night became the website’s most funded video game when its campaign ended at $5,545,991. This form of funding is relatively young, however, so records don’t last a long time. Just now, Shenmue 3‘s Kickstarter has overtaken the mark set by Bloodstained.
Standing at 5,551,592 at the time I write this, there are still more than 13 hours to go in the campaign. (Update: and back down to 5,547,671 suddenly. Someone back out? Whatever, the record is still broken.) Players now are probably hoping for the drive to crest $6 million, which is a stretch goal for “Battle System Expanded: Advanced Free Battle.” We don’t know exactly what that is, but an expanded battle system sounds like something that could really be a big step for the gameplay.
This success wasn’t without trouble, as many customers were confused early on by all the questions about such a big franchise moving to Kickstarter: what the hell the stretch goals meant, why it was on Sony’s stage, what director Yu Suzuki meant when he said “true open world,” and all kinds of stuff.
It turned around thanks to what had to be tireless efforts by Suzuki’s crew to constantly do more interviews, host Q&A streams, make new trailers, and otherwise try to push the heck out of this thing during these last 32 days.
