Skip to main content

Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter blazes to $900k goal in six hours

Developer InXile opened up the crowdfunding campaign for its new Torment earlier today.

Torment: Tides of Numenera

Looks like people love torment, because the spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment is charged toward its crowdfunding goal at a heated pace.

At 9 a.m. Eastern, developer InXile Entertainment launched its latest Kickstarter campaign for Torment: Tides of Numenera. The studio has a $900,000 goal, and it hit that target in just around six hours.

InXile chief executive officer Brian Fargo posted an update on the Kickstarter page:

GB Event

GamesBeat Summit Call for Speakers

We’re thrilled to open our call for speakers to our flagship event, GamesBeat Summit 2024 hosted in Los Angeles, where we will explore the theme of “Resilience and Adaption”.

Apply to speak here

Our heads are still spinning at the incredible response we have had from today’s support of our Kickstarter campaign. We had plans to roll out our stretch goals and to write our Kickstarter updates but never in our wildest dreams did we think we would fund this quickly!!! We are joyfully scrambling right now to get a longer update and some stretch goals in front of you as soon as we can. We should have more to say later today.

The campaign currently has more than 16,000 backers and it has 30 days to raise additional funds on the platform.

Previously, InXile used Kickstarter to fund Wasteland 2, a role-playing-game sequel to 1988 release Wasteland. That project raised nearly $3 million on the platform.

“As we continue our progression toward launch of Wasteland 2, it is important to secure funding now in order to cover the costs of preproduction and to properly scope Torment: Tides of Numenera,” said Fargo in a statement. “This method of development helps to both create a better a RPG game and to keep the winning team together from project to project. The crowd has become our financing partner and we embrace the stronger bond that it creates between us.”

If you’re wondering why InXile is going back to the Kickstarter well before releasing Wasteland 2, it’s because the artists and writers finished their work on that game. Rather than lay those people off, they could get started on a new project if they can get the funding.

In the Kickstarter pitch video, Fargo explains that InXile can get those creators working on a new project (Torment) while the rest of the development team codes the last project (Wasteland).

“As with Wasteland 2, 100 percent of the crowdfunding will be invested into creating Torment,” Torment product director Kevin Saunders said. “Our biggest goal is to create a game people actually want to play rather than force a game onto people, which is what can happen with the current publisher model.”

InXile wants to make this game for the connoisseurs of the role-playing-game genre — and it looks like those people are coming out in droves to support that goal.

Numenera is a pen-and-paper role-playing game from Monte Cook, who worked on the original Planescape setting for Dungeons & Dragons and the first Torment game. It also had a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2012.

GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it. Discover our Briefings.

Want must-read news straight to your inbox?
Sign up for VB Daily