After earning over $660,000 from over 15,000 backers on Kickstarter, developer Playdek has announced that Unsung Story: Tales of the Guardians will be sold to publisher/developer Little Orbit according to an update on the Kickstarter project from Playdek.
“Thank you for the support you have shown to make this project happen. Through the trials we have had as a company over the last few years, Playdek has strived to keep the project alive, as we believe in the game and the story that Yasumi Matsuno designed to set it in,” said Playdek in the update. “To that, we want to let you know that the project is going to continue forward, but our involvement is coming to an end.”
Not only is the game being sold to another developer, but Little Orbit will be restarting game development from the very beginning. This means that anything Playdek has added to Unsung Story: Tales of the Guardians in it’s three years of development (the project was first created in January of 2014) will be discarded from the game.
“We have spent hours going through the Kickstarter comments and researching all of the project materials, and I feel the backers have made one thing clear – we need to focus on the original single player game and Matsuno’s design that was promoted during the campaign. And that is exactly what we are going to do,” said Matthew Scott, CEO of Little Orbit in a second update about the game on Kickstarter.
By selling Unsung Story: Tales of the Guardians, Playdek will no longer have any involvement in the game’s development.
“Again, we want to thank you for your support of this project, and though we are sorry that we were unable to complete it for you, we believe the project is in good hands, with people who have the same passion for the game,” said Playdek.
Little Orbit has developed and published games for Barbie, Monster High, Adventure Time, Kung Fu Panda and more. Considering that Unsung Story: Tales of the Guardians is a standalone game while previous games Little Orbit have released are based on already-established franchises, it may be a challenge for the developers. But, Scott did promise that they will be sticking to the original features director Yasumi Matsuno wanted for the game.
“I am a gamer at heart, and my first love has always been turn-based tactics games. I met the Playdek team a couple months ago and got a firsthand look at the amazing work from Yasumi Matsuno. Simply put, this game needs to exist, so I am excited to be taking this project over and helping deliver it to the community,” said Scott.
The project came to a halt in February of 2016, according to PCGamer. At the time, Playdek lost several employees and needed more financial backing so that they would be able to develop the game. Unfortunately, it seems like they weren’t able to gain that backing before selling the game to Little Orbit.
Little Orbit, though, has promised to give backers the rewards they pledged for in due time and will be checking to make sure the information from the backers is correct so that they can be sent their rewards.
“That’s all I can share for now, but we will be following up as soon as possible with more details on the game and our progress. Thank you for your continued patience and support,” said Scott.
It’s unfortunate that Playdek will no longer be involved in the making of Unsung Story: Tales of the Guardians, but it may have been for the better considering how long the game was delayed for. Hopefully, Little Orbit will be able to please fans of Matsuno with their interpretation of the game he and Playdek originally wanted to create.
Featured image via Unsung Story: Tales of the Guardians Kickstarter page.
