The most infamous gaming Kickstarter is still working to finish the project. 'I want explicitly to state that this is not dead.'

Unsung Story, a strategy game that has been plagued by problems for years, is "getting back to track" after nearly two years since its last update. It was Kickstarted in 2006 with $660,126.

Unsung Story may not be the biggest failure of gaming Kickstarter history. That honor could go to Clang. The game raised more than half a mil in 2012, but was declared dead just two years later. Unsung Story is the only Kickstarted game that I can think of that has had such a bizarre and grueling journey, from being put on ice in 2016, to being sold to another studio and then finally released as a limited early-access version in 2020 with almost no fanfare. The release of Unsung Story has been looming over the head of Little Orbit's developer for the past four years, according to its latest update.

Matthew Scott, CEO of Little Orbit, wrote: "We shipped what was to us a great beginning to the final game." "But we were incorrect."

"Unfortunately, despite a few areas that players liked most of the feedback was overwhelmingly negative. It put the project in a weird limbo. Chapter 1 was bad enough to make me feel that we should abandon it, but not so bad that it would disappoint the fans and backers of the project.

Unsung Story, despite the initial appeal of the design and story work by Final Fantasy Tactics creator Yasumi Mattsuno was probably should had been abandoned years ago after original developer Playdek decided to quit. Matsuno’s direct involvement ceased when the initial development petered in 2016. Scott explained in 2021, however, that the rebooted version of Unsung Story is still inspired from his design documents. Little Orbit has been tenacious and has spent the past four years trying to improve its initial release, while also just... surviving.

"2023 was a rough year for our studio and the gaming industry in general. I won't go into all our struggles, but when things turn bad, the results can be disastrous for everyone," Scott wrote. He said that unpaid work done by a partner had left the studio with "hundreds and thousands of dollars in debt." Little Orbit worked on resolving the issues with the 2021 and 2022 early access builds but had to put it on hold while the studio dealt with survival.

Unsung Story appears to be in development again. Scott wrote: "I want explicitly to state that this project has not died."

"We are going screen by screen though the entire game in order to create the project plans for the remaining tasks. I will publish this here on Kickstarter." We will then publish a new sprint/milestone plan with dates for development.

Little Orbit, based on early feedback, has redesigned Unsung Story’s main character. They have also replaced 3D model “bobble heads” during dialogue sequences with traditional 2D portraits. They have also reduced the amount of dialogue, redesigned UI, rebalanced class system, and added female characters that were absent in the initial release.

Unsung Story may be completed someday. I don't mean to jinx things, but it seems that it will. You could do worse in the meantime than to play and replay the latest version of Yasumi Mattsuno's masterpiece Tactics Ogre Reborn, which was overseen by him.