In 2013, the Kickstarter campaign for Project Phoenix ended up raising over $1 million. The team estimated the game would be ready in March 2015. Then in December 2015, the team announced that Project Phoenix wouldn’t ship until 2018. In 2019, after missing that window, the game’s Kickstarter page went silent. Now, seven years and one global pandemic later, fans have finally got a new update and a new release year: 2031. Ouch.
On July 7, out of seemingly nowhere, Kickstarter backers for Project Phoenix, which developer CIA, Inc. describes as “a JRPG” with “squad-based RTS game design,” received a new, lengthy private update from the game’s directors and producer, Hiroaki Yura. One of these backers shared the full update on ResetEra, letting us all read Yura’s long-winded apology for not shipping the game and the new plan for finally, actually, maybe for real launching this long-delayed RPG.
“It has been seven years since my last update. I’m not going to soften that or bury it further down the page,” said Yura. “You backed this project, you trusted me with it, and then you heard nothing for a very long time. That silence is mine to answer for. I owe you a full explanation, and more than that, I owe you proof that Project Phoenix is still alive.”
According to the director, the reason for the long wait between updates was that he made a “rule” that he would only post if he had something “worth showing.” And apparently, for the last seven years, that hasn’t been the case. He now admits that going radio silent for nearly a decade was “the wrong call.” VGC interviewed the director and was provided some gameplay footage, which you can see below.
In his update post, Yura also addressed the fact that in the intervening years since launching the Project Phoenix Kickstarter, he has worked on and shipped other games, something that has raised red flags in the community. According to Yura, while he admits this might look bad, he promises that no money from the Kickstarter was used on these other games and that in fact, these other games helped fund Project Phoenix. He further added: “We did not get rich off [those games]. We are not anywhere close to rich. Whatever room those projects create goes straight back into being able to finish Phoenix the way it should be finished.”
“Not every dollar was spent as well as it could have been,” admitted the director in the update. “And I am not going to tell you otherwise. But all of it went into this game and its production, never anywhere else. Since then, I have made sure the rest is funded properly, so that your contribution is not the thing holding it up.”
In the update with backers, Yura shared a new, fully recorded main theme song from Nobuo Uematsu. However, even this is still a “rough mix” and not final. This update also includes a two-minute-long gameplay video that shows off a “prototype” that is still a “work in progress.” Remember, this game was meant to launch in 2015. Then 2018.
Now, Yura is aiming to finish production on the RPG “at the end of 2031” and then a release date will be revealed after that. If we are generous and assume Project Phoenix lands in 2031, that will be an 18-year gap, nearly two decades, between reveal and release. And you thought the wait for GTA 6 was long?