Obsidian Entertainment - Project Eternity Kickstarter Launched

Obsidian has unveiled a Kickstarter campaign for Project Eternity, an "isometric, party-based RPG set in a new fantasy world". The Kickstarter video highlights the talents of designers like Josh Sawyer (Project Director), Tim Cain (Senior Programmer, who points out this is his first "pure" fantasy game) and Chris Avellone. Dialogue and companions are highlighted as key features. They are looking for $1.1M in funding over the next 32 days, with $173k already on the board:

Obsidian Entertainment and our legendary game designers Chris Avellone, Tim Cain, and Josh Sawyer are excited to bring you a new role-playing game for the PC. Project Eternity (working title) pays homage to the great Infinity Engine games of years past: Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment.
Project Eternity aims to recapture the magic, imagination, depth, and nostalgia of classic RPGs that we enjoyed making - and playing. At Obsidian, we have the people responsible for many of those classic games and we want to bring those games back… and that’s why we’re here - we need your help to make it a reality!
Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment.
Combat uses a tactical real-time with pause system - positioning your party and coordinating attacks and abilities is one of the keys to success. The world map is dotted with unique locations and wilderness ripe for exploration and questing. You’ll create your own character and collect companions along the way – taking him or her not just through this story, but, with your continued support, through future adventures. You will engage in dialogues that are deep, and offer many choices to determine the fate of you and your party. …and you'll experience a story that explores mature themes and presents you with complex, difficult choices to shape how your story plays out.
We are excited at this chance to create something new, yet reminiscent of those great games and we want you to be a part of it as well.

More information.

Amazing! They seem to be trying to take some of the best elements from Baldurs Gate, Planescape: Torment, and Icewind Dale. Given their design goals, and the people involved, this is pretty much guaranteed to be awesome.

Instant pledge. Didn't even watch the video. It will be interesting how it will fare, say compared to Wasteland 2.

I remember promises of BioWare to make a spirtual successor of BG - they did DA:O and then it's sequel. I don't know where in DA2 was the spirit of BG series but well Bioware says it was an evolution. In such case the statement is: I WANT A DEVOLUTION a'la Obsidian

Well damn, everybody is out for blood via Kickstarter to chase after long sought dreams they've had indeed. I highly reckon this will make it given the current pace—-as well it should open even more doors for other dev houses to step into the fray.

In at $140 for a collector's edition and cloth map. That intro covering their pedigree of games is just bone-chillingly inspiring.

in two hours they got 200k… amazing WATCH THAT EA!

Yeah!!!

In a world of corporate greed and crappy dlcs schemes, news like these put that huge grin on my face.

I so want this project to succeed.

I'm in love.

Buck: How about the item system? Will you be hand-crafting the equipment as you did within the Infinity Engine, with elaborate histories attached to even the most mundane items? Or will there be a random element when it comes to item statistics?

Feargus: We are definitely going to go old school here. We don’t just want the world to feel unique but everything in it as well. That means creating unique items that fit into the world and have their own descriptions, histories, and potentially, their own personalities.

Bam, instant pledge. Old school ftw, woooots!!!


-Carn

Insta-pledge, although I did take the time to watch the entire video before doing so. Allowing Obisidian to remove the tethers from some mindless, tail-chasing publisher will allow us to get the kind of game we haven't seen in years. Excuse the TMI, but I've got a chubby.

I'd be highly surprized, if down the line 2013-2014 were not viewed as a great rennaissance in RPG history. So many great teams, so little resources (time, gamers, money). But a full on rebirth of the genre in such a short time.

This might be biggest gaming kickstarter yet.

I love how, a couple hours in, they already have three $10k backers. There's a lot of love out there for this studio.

I love the dudes, but I don't have confidence in them. Making a game with our current technology is far more prone to failure.
But I guess I'll pay the minimum to show my respect for older works

InstaPledge!

Originally Posted by stealth
Instant pledge. Didn't even watch the video. It will be interesting how it will fare, say compared to Wasteland 2.

There was no information of value in that video that could have changed your mind. It was purely driven by emotion (read: nostalgia)

Originally Posted by Nameless one
This might be biggest gaming kickstarter yet.

I doubt they can top the 10,3 million of pebble watch. Pebble was a lifestyle product, this is a core game. The next one is Ouya (8,6 mio), a product open to a wide variety of genres and products.

All I know is, this project totally makes up for BG: EE being delayed. I went from super sad to super glad in under 20 mins, haha!!


-Carn

As soon as Mac support is promised, they've got my money!

Originally Posted by Avantenor
I doubt they can top the 10,3 million of pebble watch. Pebble was a lifestyle product, this is a core game. The next one is Ouya (8,6 mio), a product open to a wide variety of genres and products.

I didn't use good term there.I meant to say this might be biggest game on kickstarter.