Eternal Darkness spiritual successor will be episodic, according to cached webpage (update)

A cached webpage of Precursor Games' crowdfunding campaign for Shadow of the Eternals could offer a glimpse at what its recently announced Shadow of the Eternals will contain, with details of an episodic game, a $1.1 million funding goal for the first episode, and the involvement of Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack listed in the cached page.

The studio announced today via a teaser trailer that is it working on the spiritual successor to the survival horror game, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, which was originally developed by Silicon Knights in 2002. Precursor announced that the game is titled Shadow of the Eternals, and that a crowdfunding campaign for the title will launch the same day as the gameplay reveal on May 6.

A NeoGAF forum member found the webcache (which has since been taken down) of a Precursor crowdfunding page for a game that purports to be a sequel to Eternal Darkess: Sanity's Requiem . The webcache lists the game name as Shadow of the Ancients. A non-cached and different version of the crowdfunding page went up briefly today before being taken down, but not before InsiderGamer.nl screencapped the website. The details listed on the cached page indicate that Shadow of the Ancients and Shadow of the Eternals are the same game, but the difference in title suggests that some of the information could be out-of-date. It is unclear how old the page is. The screencapped website also includes an image of Denis Dyack as a member of the Precursor Games team.

The cached webpage explains that the game features "...an ensemble of heroes and villains, the game will span over 2,500 years of history throughout Egypt, England, Hungary and the United States. Players will question the perception of reality as they try to balance the mechanics of combat, magick and sanity events to progress through the adventure."

The page also details why the studio is turning to crowdfunding and lists the reward and pledge tiers, which reveal that the game will be episodic. If the game meets its $1.1 million funding goal, the series' pilot episode will be created, while an obscured line of text on the site hints at the fact that a second episode would be delivered as a stretch goal. Supporters can pledge the lowest tier of $5 to get a copy of Episode 1 of the game, or pledge $50 to get all 12 episodes. The highest reward tier caps at $10,000, which gives backers everything from the previous 16 tiers as well as an invitation to the game's private launch party and an executive producer credit.

The cached page's FAQ section says the development team will focus on PC and Wii U platforms, and other platforms may be added in the future. It also says the game is a single-player experience and will not have multiplayer.

When reached for comment, Precursor Games said they will provide more information early next week.

Update: Precursor Games confirmed with IGN that Shadow of the Eternals is indeed headed to Windows PC and Wii U and will be told through 12 episodes. The studio clarified that the crowdfunding goal is $1.5 million, which is more than what was listed on both the cached webpage ($1.1 million) and the screencapped site ($1.2 million). In a comment provided to IGN, Precursor Games said: "our primary goal for Shadow of the Eternals is to raise 1.5M dollars. Any money raised beyond this will contribute to stretch goals that go beyond the first episode, including future episodes, additional characters, additional platforms and in-game perks. The more money that we raise, the more we can deliver, which is a win for everyone."