Last week, Ukrainian developer Frogwares revealed their "Project Palianytsia" to be a full remake and substantial rewrite of their 2006 release Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, and has now gone live with a Kickstarter campaign to safeguard the funding of their Lovecraftian horror adventure.
Along with more details about the game and a collection of rewards for backers, the campaign page has two new videos from the team.
The first being that game's first official trailer shows a young Holmes and Watson fleeing for their lives. A "misunderstanding" of sorts has led the New Orlean Sheriffs' Department to hunt down the duo. After a few near misses from some shotguns, the budding detectives escape into the deeps of the surrounding swamps. But something seems noticeably off, let alone with Sherlock, who seems to already be losing his hold on reality.
The team have also released a lengthy team update video. On top of stark images of what has occurred in Ukraine during the invasion, the video explains why Frogwares have opted for Kickstarter, how the team are currently dealing with the situation, and more on what The Awakened will be on top of some additional work in progress footage of the game.
You can view both videos below.
"We opted for Kickstarter to create a financial safety net for the game but also to try to give back to our closest fans wanting to support us now. This way we can give them that bit of recognition by putting their names and photos into the game while it’s still in development," states Sergiy Oganesyan, Comms Director at Frogwares. "We also have decided to be very realistic with our other rewards and keep them all digital. We have seen devs in the past promise things that become very time-consuming to deliver. Our team simply doesn’t have that luxury."
All the downloadable rewards on Kickstarter will be made available for purchase to all players in the future, but supporters of the campaign will be getting this content first and at a notable discount, including the game itself.
Frogwares do not have a set release date for Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened but internally the consensus is that they will be able to finish and deliver the game by mid-2023, if not sooner.
The Awakened will be coming to PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch.