Shadow of the Eternals "unlikely" to be completed if Kickstarter fails

Shadow of the Eternals, the crowd-funded spiritual successor to GameCube classic Eternal Darkness, faces an uncertain future.

If its current crowdfunding drive fails, it's likely that the game will never see the light of day, developer Precursor Games has said. There is no backup plan.

"Since we do not have any other source of funding, it is unlikely," Precursor exec Shawn Jackson explained last night during a Reddit AMA (thanks, Polygon).

Shadow of the Eternals' crowdfunding campaign began earlier this month via the developer's own site. A Kickstarter page was added a week later.

With 18 days of its crowdfunding campaign remaining, just $271,879 of Precursor's ambitious $1.5 million target has been raised.

And that's just for the game's pilot episode - there will be 12 in total, although Precursor has said that subsequent chapters should be cheaper to produce.

Jackson also used the AMA to defend Denis Dyack, the controversial creator of Eternal Darkness and boss of now-defunct developer Silicon Knights.

"We hired him because he's a valuable asset to the team," Jackson wrote. "We intend to show people the real Denis Dyack through his interactions on the forums and videos."

And while Dyack was involved in the business side of things at Silicon Knights, his role at Precursor is a purely creative one, Jackson concluded.

"We believe in Denis and with him focusing on creative, he is excelling at something that he loves. Paul Caporicci founded Precursor Games and is the CEO."