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. 

The Kickstarter officially ended at 7 AM Central Time today with final totals showing 16,936 backers and $1,766,204 raised. Taking into account the additional pledges collected directly on the official website, the total backer number tops 17,000 and pledge amount comes to just under $1.8 million.

“The support from our community has been absolutely amazing,” said J. Todd Coleman, co-founder and creative director. “We started strong, and we ended even stronger.  It’s been more than a year since we’ve seen a video game kickstarter break into the top 15, and we couldn’t be more excited!”

The Kickstarter ended today, but the crowd funding for Crowfall will continue on the official website. The new funding platform will add several new payment methods for people wanting to support the project, and make it easier for international players to join the community.

“Kickstarter provides an amazing vehicle for our fans to support this project, but we also have players in other countries who haven’t been able to back us,” said ArtCraft co-founder and President Gordon Walton. “For those fans, and for the others who missed the Kickstarter, we’ve opened up our own platform on Crowfall.com.  We’ll be adding upgrades and new backer bundles in the coming days and weeks.”

“This is only the beginning,” explained Coleman of their early success. “We’ve built a vision. We’ve proven that we can find an audience. Now we just need to execute.”

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.