Shroud of the Avatar Reaches $1 Million on Kickstarter!

Richard Garriott’s Shroud of the Avatar just reached the $1 million dollar mark on Kickstarter, meaning that the project has reached its funding goal with the better part of nineteen days to go. Congratulations to the Portalarium team on a successful crowdfunding campaign; we all look forward to playing Forsaken Virtues when it launches in (hopefully!) 2014.

Richard Garriott had some gracious words to offer on Google+ to mark the event:

On behalf of my team, I want to sincerely thank everyone who has pledged your support for Shroud of the Avatar! We have been inspired by the passion this community has shown for this project, and are thrilled by the wealth of feedback and suggestions we have already received in such a short time. If you still have not pledged, please take a look at the project and all that we hope to accomplish and consider backing today. Our journey is only just beginning!

As you can imagine, stretch goals have been announced for the remaining not-quite-three-weeks of the Kickstarter campaign:

$1.1 M PET SYSTEM!

One word, “Pets!” We’re adding both social and combat pets which players can control using simple commands

$1.2 M SEASONAL WEATHER!

Grab your cloak, because we’re adding Weather to the game!

$1.3 M To Be Revealed!

It’s the “seasonal weather” feature that, I think, is the more interesting. Not that in-game pets aren’t — the pets in Torchlight are actually quite useful — but dynamic seasons in an RPG are…not something that has been tried that often, especially with a 3D engine. And such a feature would do wonders to add to the sense of world immersiveness.

So, if you haven’t yet pledged to the Shroud of the Avatar campaign, you might just want to do so! The game is going to happen, and every additional dollar can only serve to make it even better.