For the last many weeks, we’ve been covering the Kickstarter drive of Zenith, a cyberpunk MMO courting both PC and VR players. As of today, that drive is over, and it’s a resounding success, as studio Ramen VR had sought just $25,000 – but raised over $280,000 from over 3400 backers. That’s in addition to what the devs characterized as outside investment from multiple sources exceeding the Kickstarter and a Kickstarter referral campaign that surely pushed things along. Moreover, donors reached all of the team’s planned stretch goals, including player housing and the level editor.
“Inspired by anime and JRPG classics and reimagined as a dynamic living world with cross-play between VR platforms and PC, Zenith offers a futuristic universe in which players will fight, craft, explore, and live as they forge alliances and friendships in guilds and parties. In the game world, heroes are needed to venture forth to save Zenith from calamity. Characters who take up this challenge can participate in epic raids and world events or go solo to become a powerful leader whose deeds will be forever immortalized. With the $250,000 milestone, the game has now added seven stretch goals including the new Mineko race and the final goal of a level editor that will allow players to design their own levels.”
Ramen is a tiny three-person studio, but there’s a tester sign-up form – you’ll have to pinky-swear you’re not a member of the press. The Kickstarter rewards suggest a brisk timeline: pre-alpha in three months, closed alpha in six, and the closed beta by August 2020.
Ramen has noted that the Kickstarter alone will not be funding the game; the outside investment we mentioned earlier will be doing a lot of heavy lifting: “The Kickstarter will allow us to make the game even better and more polished but it isn’t all the money we have.”
