After Setbacks, Dev Behind Final Fantasy Tactics Creator's New JRPG Considering Refunds

Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians, the new JRPG from Final Fantasy Tactics director Yasumi Matsuno and developer Playdek, has "cleared a few hurdles," but it still sounds like tough times for the project. In an update on Kickstarter today, the developer said it is considering offering refunds "in some manner."

"Due to the development struggles the project has been under, some have asked as to whether we would offer refunds for those who wish to have them," the studio said. "As a company, we wouldn't want to hold anyone hostage so to speak to a project that they have lost faith in. This doesn't help anyone--company or consumer alike."

However, before Playdek can make the determination about whether or not it can offer refunds, it needs to "get to a position of stronger financial health." To date, Playdek has spent about $1.5 million on Unsung Story development, which is far more than the $660,000 that the game raised on Kickstarter in 2014. A detailed breakdown on where the money was spent is available here.

The developer explained that it has "cleared a few more company hurdles" since the last update earlier this month. At the time, the studio said it needed to put Unsung Story on the backburner so it could instead work on projects that were nearer to release that could bring in money to keep the company viable in the near-term. A number of key staffers also departed in 2015, which set the project back.

Now, Playdek says things are looking up, as it has reached a new agreement with its unspecified creditor.

"Our secured creditor has been tremendously supportive through our company financial and development struggles, and is a team player in our good faith effort to remain a viable company and fulfill our development commitments and company obligations," Playdek said.

"Per the previous update, we have an immediate product to ship that will put the company into a stronger revenue position, and that revenue will allow us to continue the Unsung Story development plan," Playdek further explained.

"With a smaller team and diminished finances, we came to a point where those two things combined made creating content assets that would lead to a playable version of the game, that we could deliver to backers, challenging to the say the least."

Playdek is now working to "further advance" the Unsung Story prototypes and get the game into a fully playable state. The developer was hoping this could be done by June 2016, but this date has now shifted to fall 2016.

Finally, the developer again thanked fans for their patience.

"We know that as a backer supported project, our struggles with completing this project have been very trying for you, and we truly wish that development of this game had gone smoother," it said. "Unfortunately, there are unexpected financial hardships that companies sometimes find themselves facing, and as difficult as they may be, we are thankful that we have been able to work through them and can keep the company viable and Unsung Story development on track.

Unsung Story is billed as a spiritual successor to Matsuno's line of tactical RPGs, reimagining the genre with "complex and rich game worlds" as well as "inspiring class-based tactics gameplay."

We'll have more details on Unsung Story as they're made available.