Originally conceived at Midway Games as an ambitious next gen game called “Hero,” Project Awakened, powered by the Unreal Engine 4, and its core gameplay tenets were saved by a group of its most talented developers who then started Phosphor Games Studio.

Perhaps the most exceptional thing about Project Awakened is the potential to craft gameplay experiences and challenges that never existed before:

• Create a Batman-like hero with a giant samurai sword and incredible strength and power for combat;
• Imagine a non-violent femme fatale with amazing speed, agility and no weapons who can race around enemies;
• Or a character that absorbs and reflects enemy abilities and bullets. 

The possibilities are endless and allow each player to generate one-of-a-kind gameplay experience unlike anything before. 

“Project Awakened is without a doubt the game we’ve always dreamed of making as developers and playing as gamers,” said Chip Sineni, Phosphor Games Studio Director.  “We realize how challenging this game is to make, but we have the ability and technology with the Unreal Engine 4 to deliver it.  Project Awakened is a game that virtually every publisher loved, but was afraid to make, so we are taking our idea to core gamers through Kickstarter and asking the community to become our publisher.”

The Kickstarter campaign kicks off today and runs through March 6, with Phosphor Games looking to raise a minimum of $500,000 from backers.  Although the game has been in development for a few years, the money generated from the Kickstarter campaign will allow Phosphor Games to have a dedicated team help finish the title, as well as add a number of exciting features to the game. 

Project Awakened contains a modular powers and skill system that allows players to select from a huge number of abilities and combine them in unique ways. Unlike other games which use a class system or skill trees, Project Awakened leaves every choice and ability up the player. Likewise, players will have the opportunity to completely customize the appearance of their characters. Comical or serious, rough or polished, nearly any character imaginable can be created using the Project Awakened Player Creation system. The result is a game with seemingly limitless gameplay and replay potential based on which abilities players choose.

While Project Awakened allows for players to make typical videogame heroes such as Ninjas, Snipers, or Urban Warriors, what makes Project Awakened truly unique is the potential to craft gameplay experiences and challenges that have never existed before. An invisible hero who can charm enemies to fight for her. A non-violent hero with super speed and agility racing past enemies to the goal. A man who spontaneously combusts at will and touches everyone to incinerate them. The possibilities are endless, and allow players to craft a gameplay challenge unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. The only limit is the player’s imagination.

As a player, you will be caught between a number of factions: a government that wants to lock down and control physical augmentation, corporations that are constantly (and perhaps recklessly) trying to invent the next big leap in augmentation, rebels who believe we are descending into a police state and want to unlock human potential for all, and those who believe that, for a select few, augmentation is the next step in human evolution.

The world of Project Awakened is our world, today. Our governments, our lives, our struggles…but standing just past the tipping point of the technological evolution of humanity, and all the power and chaos that results. Governments and corporations wage covert wars with super soldiers. Police department budgets struggle to combat crime lords unhindered by constraints of money or ethics. Gods rise among us with the same fallible minds, inside superhuman bodies. And you, in our world today, are among the Awakened. Look up for a moment, look around you. What would you do in your world, if you were a god?  

Multiplayer in Project Awakened will open players’ eyes to the creative potential of what videogames can be. The myriad of abilities and weapons available in the game will allow players to craft teams of characters never before seen in multiplayer games and specially suited to countering enemy strategies or achieving objectives. While multiplayer will take inspirations from other competitive team-building and objective based games, the focus will be providing an action-packed online experience that players can customize to their liking.

Different gameplay scenarios will call for different character makeups. A capture-the-flag game might involve one character with stealth abilities sneaking past the opposing team and grabbing their flag, while another character with freezing powers stops the enemy flag carrier. A point defense map might inspire players to create an entire team of stone-skinned tanks. There will be tradeoffs and counter strategies to every combination of abilities, and only through solid strategy and teamwork, as well as individual player skill, will a team's potential be truly unlocked.

Project Awakened has huge potential to foster a robust Mod community. If the Stretch Goal is achieved, Project Awakened will ship with the editor exposed, and the game itself will be built in such a modular fashion that it will be easy to modify any values on any abilities, weapons, maps, etc. to the player’s liking. Craft new weapons, new character outfits, and create entirely new maps and gameplay scenarios using the easy to use editor and our massive art library.

Swap out soldiers for orcs or skeletons, use medieval armor, place it in a castle setting and create a fantasy game.  Swap out street clothes for sci-fi and create a space epic. Pit one powerful Awakened character vs a team of simple police officers trying to take him down. Create a brutal power-laden game of rugby. By defining the playable characters, objectives, and settings, players can make anything they want. Add robust game rules and objectives, and players can create any sort of multiplayer scenario they can conceive of.
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