Playdek's Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians, a promising tactical role-playing game co-developed with Yasumi Matsuno (Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy 12), was a moderate success story on Kickstarter last year. But after little apparent progress — the developer hasn't shown any screenshots or gameplay — and no updates from Playdek since November, backers have expressed worry about the state of Unsung Story.
We reached out to Playdek to see what the status of the game is, since Unsung Story's Kickstarter, Facebook and Twitter accounts haven't been updated for a disconcertingly long time. A Playdek rep says the game is still in development and that the team is readying an update that it plans to release to backers soon.
We're told the Unsung Story team has been "heads down working on core features of the game." An update explaining its development progress is expected sometime next week.
When asked about the game's targeted release date — listed as July 2015 on Kickstarter — a representative for Playdek said it didn't have any new information to share.
The most recent update from Playdek touched on the game's story, presented backers with new artwork and discussed how the developer was integrating the Unity game engine and refining Unsung Story's battle system.
Playdek announced Unsung Story and its collaboration with Yasumi Matsuno at Tokyo Game Show 2013. The developer revealed it was working on two new titles under the name Unsung Story: One is a digital card game being developed by French board game designer Christophe Boelinger; the other, Tale of the Guardians, said to be the centerpiece of Unsung Story's world, is a more traditional tactics-style video game envisioned by Matsuno. Working with Matsuno and Playdek are creators Akihiko Yoshida, the artist known for his work on Tactics Ogre, Vagrant Story and Bravely Default, and Hitoshi Sakimoto, composer on Final Fantasy 12 and Final Fantasy Tactics.
Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians is slated to come to PC and mobile platforms and hopefully we'll get a clearer picture of Playdek's plans for the game next week.
Disclosure: The author is a backer of Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians on Kickstarter.