Crowfall is a seamless blend of an MMO with a large-scale Strategy game, where players control the universe, to shape as they see fit. Characters are persistent, but the campaign worlds are not. players are Immortal Champions, traveling between realms to fight in an eternal War of the Gods.

Each Campaign World is a server or "realm".  It exists for a limited time – typically 1 to 3 months -- or until some win condition is met. During this time, the World will change.  Each Campaign has four stages: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. With each passing season, the World grows more deadly as the land is consumed by an unstoppable legion of undead -- The Hunger.

At the end of Winter, the Campaign is over. A victor is declared, the map is wiped and that World goes offline forever...  ...but the characters are NEVER wiped.  Instead, the participants take their winnings back home to the Eternal Kingdoms, to prepare and strategize for the next Campaign. 

Fans of the game can back the kickstarter campaign. Backers have a chance to fund the project via multiple levels of giving, are of which are documented on the Kickstarter page.  Depending on the backer levels, fans who contribute to Crowfall on Kickstarter can be involved in the games pre-release testing, purchase the game at a discount, and secure castles and fortifications for their personal kingdoms.

“We are floored and humbled by the response from our community,” explained Gordon Walton, ArtCraft president and executive producer. “We hoped that the vision behind Crowfall would help it find an audience, but we didn’t expect to exceed our target so quickly.”

“Crowfall is a completely player-driven universe,” explains J. Todd Coleman, CEO and game director. ”Instead of creating thousands of hours of content, we give the players the tools they need to create their own experiences. Crowfall is an economic, political and military simulator. We expect thousands —or hundreds of thousands—of players to join guilds and noble houses and to compete for control of the virtual universe.”

Walton adds, “Prior to launching our Kickstarter campaign, we spent about two months teasing out information about the game we were making…what it is, how it works and what kind of players we thought it might appeal to. Our strategy was to build our community first. Given that we hit our funding target so quickly, that was obviously the right approach.”

Stretch Goal 1 is called "Upgrade FX, Hire Another Eric, Add Female Centaurs!"  

We aren't happy with our combat, spell and environmental FX. The current FX in the game are placeholders... not ideal, but it was the only option available, because we didn't have a full time FX artist. Usually games have at least one artist who specializes in making amazing visual FX (explosions, fire, smoke, lightning -- you name it.) 

Since we don't have a dedicated FX Artist, we handed that task to one of our other artists (Eric) and made him do it. The result are FX that look good, but not amazing (no offense, Eric!). So, the "Hire Another Eric" stretch goal really does a few things for us: First: Spell FX! We will use the funds of the stretch goal to hire an FX artist and to secure an FX technology library for creating amazing spell FX in Crowfall.  

With this extra capacity, we're going to add another gender option for one of our previous-locked raced: the Centaur Legionnaire archetype.   That means we'll have male/female variants on: Druid, Ranger, Champion, Confessor, Knight, Templar, Frostweaver... and Legionnaire!  

Stretch Goal 2: Mounts and Caravans!

A major emphasis of Crowfall is transporting goods and materials. When you raid a quarry and secure a palette of Stone, getting that material back to your stronghold to it -- or to scavenge it for your Eternal Kingdom -- will be a major strategic challenge!

The core module assumes that players will be schlepping these items back and forth in their inventory. That's workable, sure, but it's not nearly as cool as using MOUNTS and CARTS to move those items!

Mounts are something you guys are already familiar with: find a drafthorse or a warhorse, saddle them up and ride them across the countryside.  

Now take that concept and expand it, giving your mounts the ability to carry goods for you and expand your inventory. This opens up a whole new type of gameplay, where ambushing other factions and guilds becomes a lot more interesting (and lucrative!) and opens the door for more systems later (like taming and breeding!)  

The Worlds are made of voxels (like Minecraft, only much less blocky) – which means the entire World is destructible. Crowfall's campaign maps are procedurally generated -- meaning that the process of creating every mountain, forest, river, castle and abandoned village is automated.  Each World is different, which means that the game of territorial conquest will be different in every Campaign.

The beginning of each Campaign is like the first round of Civilization: players are dropped into a harsh environment, surrounded by Fog-of-War. The Worlds are filled with deadly monsters, haunted ruins, abandoned quarries... and the most dangerous predator of all, other players. Craft weapons, scavenge armor, secure a stronghold, forge alliances and conquer the World.

There are two types of Worlds in the Crowfall universe: the Campaign Worlds, which produce materials (stone, iron and wood) and the Eternal Kingdoms, which are barren of resources -- but last forever. If each Campaign is like a soccer match, the Eternal Kingdoms encompass the entire season!  Unlike the Campaigns, these Worlds are permanent -- and they are completely managed and owned by the players.

Players act as rulers -- they can divide up their domains into provinces and grant those lands to other players.  Benevolent monarch or iron-fisted tyrant, what kind of kingdom will you rule?

The Eternal Kingdom can be massive -- with mountains and rivers, castles and villages, dungeons and ruins.  They are also devoid of resources: stone, iron and wood.  To gain the resources necessary to build structures and craft items, players will have to participate in Campaigns... or treat with those who do.