Fans of castle building and medieval warfare can now join Firefly Studiosā crusade to create the ultimate castle sim, with the next entry in their legendary Stronghold series now live at www.Gambitious.com. For 30 days fans will be able to pledge and help fund Crusader 2 in exchange for a variety of tier rewards. These include receiving Crusader 2 at a discounted price, gaining access to the gameās closed multiplayer beta and other rewards such as Stronghold HD.Ā
Laying siege to the real-time strategy genre in early 2014, Stronghold Crusader 2 will take Stronghold fans back to the ancient deserts of the Middle East for strategic mayhem between brutal knights and fiery Caliphs. Building on the highly praised gameplay of the original Stronghold Crusader, Crusader 2 will define hardcore real-time strategy with fiendish AI opponents and fast-paced skirmish gameplay. New units, buildings and castle designs will appear alongside an innovative co-op mode, which allows two players to control the same castle, troops and resources. A sleek new battle interface will also be introduced to make Crusader 2 the ultimate skirmish game, with a variety of engine enhancements to improve the gameās visuals, performance and real-time physics.
āStronghold Crusader is our favourite game, itās our fansā favourite game and itās the game we have been waiting to put into production for several long years now. Firefly Studios finally has that chance and we will not disappoint,ā said Simon Bradbury, CEO of Firefly Studios and Designer of Stronghold Crusader 2.Ā
Over the past decade, the Stronghold series has sold over 6 million games under the Stronghold, Stronghold Crusader and Stronghold Kingdom banners. āThe original Stronghold Crusader has been a huge success since its launch ten years ago, selling over 2.5 million units and still going strong. We get constant requests for more,ā said Eric Ouellette, President of Firefly Studios.
āCrowd funding is a revolution for small, independent developers like ourselves and through Gambitious we hope to supplement the development of Stronghold Crusader 2,ā said Eric. āWith the support of our fans we can release Stronghold Crusader 2 when itās absolutely perfect and push the game to new heights.ā
With the help of funding secured through the Gambitious platform, Firefly Studios plans to digitally self-publish Stronghold Crusader 2 on PC in early 2014. All funding will go towards game polish, a closed beta, additional game content to be announced during the crowd funding campaign.
More news and information on Stronghold Crusader 2 can be found at StrongholdCrusader2.com and fans can help fund the latest crusade at Gambitious.com. Twitter users can follow @SHCrusader2 and @GambitiousInc for updates on the crowd funding campaign and development of Stronghold Crusader 2.
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About Firefly Studios Firefly Studios is an independent PC game developer specialising in real-time strategy and MMO titles. Formed in 1999 by Simon Bradbury and Eric Ouellette, the company has brought to market a number of high profile and commercially successful strategy games, including the Stronghold series with lifetime sales of over five million. Firefly has offices in the UK and US. For more information please visit their website at www.fireflyworlds.com or follow @fireflyworlds on Twitter.
About Gambitious The first ever professional crowd funding platform specifically for the games industry. Gambitious is a professional environment where game developers, their fans and serious investors can identify one and other and collaborate for mutual benefit. A combination of the donation based pre-sale model with an equity-based model, Gambitious allows more serious games investors to take a revenue share giving them a piece of the pie in the projects they decide to support. The Gambitious management team harnesses the knowledge and expertise of its experienced staff of developers, producers, marketers and publishers to provide a filter for new game projects. Whether a project is proposed by a world-renowned team or an up-and-coming indie, the Gambitious team challenges them to think all the way through the process and present a real business case for bringing their project to market.
