Concluding its Kickstarter campaign with roughly $70,000 over its original $562,000 goal, Dual Universe is officially funded. Reaching its goal with only three days left in the Kickstarter campaign, Paris-based developer Novaquark took it down to the wire.
“This Kickstarter campaign has been both exciting and challenging. You have shown through your tremendous support that a game like this should exist, and it will! Again, you have our eternal thanks!” the developer posted for fans. According to Novaquark, Dual Universe is the third-highest funded video game on Kickstarter this year.
For those that haven’t heard of Novaquark or Dual Universe, you likely aren’t alone. A new studio built from the ground up by French scientist Jean-Christophe ‘JC’ Baillie, Novaquark only entered onto the public stage four months ago when they revealed Dual Universe and demoed the game on the PC Showcase stage at E3.
An impressively ambitious combination of a shared universe MMO like EVE: Online and the crafting capabilities of Minecraft, Dual Universe is a sandbox MMO that will exist almost entirely through player creation and emergent gameplay. We recently spoke with Baillie and gave an in depth profile the game as part of our Kickstarter Spotlight series.
Now that the game is funded through Kickstarter, Novaquark plans to open up an independent crowdfunding campaign as well. Meanwhile, though the funding fell just short of the Construct vs. Construct stretch goal, which would allow combat between player-created vehicles, Novaquark has decided to include the feature anyways.
Alpha and beta phases will take place in the years to come with Dual Universe set for a tentative final release at the end of 2018.