Moon Beast Productions managed to pull it out near the end. With less than 24 hours ago, it was still just below $400,000 ($100,000 remaining). $30k worth of pledges came in throughout the day but got kicked over the line with some large pledges near the end.

Going completely against my own past takes on Kickstarting games (never say never), this one will be my first and (likely) only game I will ever do. It’s less about their collective experience with Blizzard North and Diablo/Diablo II but more about the vision for pushing this particular genre forward.

In spite of deciding to help fund this, I still may not end up really playing this game either since I am not kidding when I say that gaming (plus a few other recent interests) has really fallen off of a cliff for me. Maybe by the time early access releases, I might be in a different frame of mind. Will see.

UPDATE (March 21, 2026): seems this was pushed over the top via pledges that one backer was not planning to honor. Not sure what options Kickstarter will give them (obviously, most Kickstarters have pledges which don’t go through but this one might have been excessively fraudulent).

UPDATE (March 28, 2026): After a few days of MBP talking with Kickstarter and getting feedback from existing backers regarding the various options, they decided to move forward. I myself wrote they should consider just moving forward since they had raised a larger percentage of the goal.

Kickstarter acknowledged that the $65K in pledges that was not honored after it seemed that it had successfully funded, did not constitute enough grounds to consider it as unsuccessful (leaving it up to MBP to make the decision). What may have also helped is additional last minute addon upgrades (before the ability to pledge to the campaign became unavailable) since the total showed over $520K before that info disappeared.

I think it is the right move in this challenging environment. Transparent communication also helped. While they had always intended to continue on even if this failed, it’s extra funding now which will still help towards EA (which they also acknowledged based on feedback from the tech demo, have their work cut out).

I think they are also being careful about inviting a bigger name (like David Brevik) to become involved simply because that could create unrealistic expectations at this particular stage.

Moon Beast Productions have been on a small blitz recently (when it looked like their Kickstarter was stalling out a few days ago). They resumed the $25 special (which ended on February 22nd) and added a few perks for each tier (promising more additions).

Additionally, the former CEO of Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile) Chris Wilson, had the three principals of Moon Beast Productions on as guests where they answered some questions about their time at Blizzard North and the work they did on Diablo/Diablo II (as well what they’ve been doing since).

Wilson has long been enamored with Diablo/Diablo II (since it was the main reason he ended up starting his own company in order to make a spiritual successor to D2:LOD). The deal with Tencent acquiring the majority of the Grinding Gear Games in 2018, secured Wilson financially (the three original founders ended up selling their remaining stake to Tencent in 2024).

While I was familiar with Hu and Schaefer, I didn’t really know much about Shenk (and learned about his contributions); it was an overall enlightening chat to learn what their approach is for Darkhaven.

I like their rationale regarding why the modding portion being a key pillar of the design (where Shenk highlighted that a lot of the innovation in gaming came about from mods for various games and like how mods inspired new genres and titles; a good example being the Warcraft III mod that resulted in Dota where Valve created the Dota 2 sequel. Dota 2 then inspired Riot Games to create League of Legends in this faster paced MOBA genre which grew out of the original RTS roots).

They are also thinking about the challenges involved (which is what makes watching this entire interview key as to the potential this game has). They also covered the funding challenges (it seems that even publisher capital investment has effectively dried up post-COVID; something that Wilson acknowledged when he tried assisting some folks who later told him they weren’t successful with getting any investment) where they helped clarify this Kickstarter along with the very early technical alpha as being part of the data points they would like to use to highlight interest when talking with potential publishers (to also invest in seeing the game developed more fully).

That helped answer my previous question as to why they hadn’t been successful with traditional funding given their collective experience. Hu seems to be the underspoken technical genius (amongst a group of other really resourceful veterans) as he has architected this backend architecture for the game (where testers from around the world, have surprisingly mentioned they didn’t notice the usual network lag – the sole game server being used for testing online play is sitting in one of their homes in the U.S.)

Hu was also the sole developer who ended up putting out the 1.10 patch for Diablo II (this again was during a time when a lot of changes were happening at Blizzard with the large companies like Vivendi Entertainment looking to acquire them and when most of the Blizzard North principals had decided to leave the company because IIRC, Blizzard South wanted everyone there to relocate to Irvine). Hu left for Flagship shortly after this patch.

Digressing a short bit, the articulated rationale for the modding part highlights the fundamental difference that Blizzard has long had post Diablo II (like not having any modding in the remastered Diablo II Resurrected and not having even an offline single player mode in Diablo III even though early on, such a mode had originally been planned but was pulled once the real money auction house was greenlighted).

I’ve written about that before (and don’t want to revisit that stuff) since that was Blizzard Entertainment at the time culturally (a lot of the fall out in recent years has resulted in many of the key founders and executive leadership departing the company; the Microsoft acquisition of the parent holding company Activision Blizzard has for the most part, gutted that Blizzard Entertainment of old. But that again is not a rabbit hole I want to go down.

The Kickstarter itself saw a significant boost and is now well over 50% funded with 22 days (as of this writing) remaining. At this updated pace, it looks like they should reach that $500,000 all or nothing goal. They also updated the technical pre-alpha demo on the 22nd (which IMHO is critical for the fence sitters). They definitely conveyed that Kickstarter was not the preferred route and without naming names, how some projects have added to the challenge.

That was a key factor for them deciding to put this very early rough draft of the game as a proof in concept as they also realize that just simply highlighting their past credentials, doesn’t mean much. Even I previously wrote that those credentials meant something back during that time when Blizzard/Blizzard North, the gaming industry, and the type of players were the way they were.

I still don’t know if this particular game will be something that gets me back to enjoying ARPG’s again since even gaming in general, has fallen off my radar. This chat with Chris Wilson did definitely help answer a lot of questions plus also reiterate these three principals are not some fly by night folks trying to make a quick rug pull using Kickstarter.

March 13th UPDATE: With a week left, it looks like the Kickstarter has stalled again (the boost from the above was short lived).

They are going to need someone with deep pockets since they’ve run the course with the add-on’s and looking at the numbers for the non-limited tiers, the onw with the largest backing is the $80 Hero of Darkhaven. The two lowest limited time tiers ($25) having less than 1300 backers combined AND the current two lowest tiers ($30 and $40) having less than 300 combined backers, highlights one of the issues.

Since this is going to be a buy to play title (and the low end of the Kickstarter is normally the floor for where the actual release price will be; meaning at least $40 and higher but without the rewards), there is little in this campaign that is persuading the free to play demographic of buying into much of what they are trying to accomplish in this genre (and the reputations of everyone including Chris Wilson, isn’t having a huge impact).

As per their interview, the numbers for this Kickstarter plus interest level on Steam (with the wishlisting), are meant to be used for discussions with potential publishers and investors. Less than 5000 backers is problematic if trying to sell the potential angle.

We will see if they can pull it out in this next week.

Moon Beast Productions launched their demo of its Darkhaven OARPG on Steam (which as of this posting, I have yet to try). As noted before, this is the game/game studio that was formed by former Blizzard North leads/designers.

Part of this technical pre-alpha is associated with their $500,000 Kickstarter (I’ve already stated my opinion on gaming Kickstarter’s). The majority of my ire has been in the MMORPG crowdfunding space, but it also applies to a lot of these other unknown devs overpromising the “moon” (pun intended). While Moon Beast Productions falls outside of this “unknown dev” definition to a degree due to the principals involved, that doesn’t mean this game will turn out to be successful either.

This Kickstarter is an all or nothing goal to fund it to an early access launch (and will probably be easily reached by that March 20, 2026 deadline¹). This demo is naturally meant to give players and potential funders an idea of what they’ve been working on since the studio launched in 2021. It’s also risky to allow such an early pre-alpha state version to be this hands on (because gamers have a way of forgetting that).

With this studio having some known industry veterans, does that reputation give them extra “brownie” points? I suppose it does lend a bit more credibility, but I still advise throwing caution to the wind (due diligence) because as I posted about before, none of that means they or this game will end up being good/successful (Torchlight Frontiers, Echtra Games and Max Schaefer being a perfect example).

I do believe that this name recognition (especially Erich Schaefer who is the brother of Blizzard North co-founder, Max Schaefer) does help with the ARPG niche credibility though. I plan on trying to find out why they decided to fund it this way even if I can guess some of the reasons (like how the venture capital for certain niches has been drying up in recent years). Plus there has been all of this game industry fallout in recent years (stop killing games did help make players think a bit more about how awful these gaming industry executives are with their takes on monetization).

But it still does make me wonder given all of their collective experience, connections and industry contacts, how they weren’t able to secure more traditional funding (outside the original infusion of $4.5 million in seed funding for the studio/early prototype work). I realize they may not have entertained some offers (in order to maintain control of their overall vision). This is still one of those questions however which can provide more clarity on “why Kickstarter?”

Furthermore, the timing couldn’t have been worse (with the whole Ashes of Creation drama). But I get the logistics of the Kickstarter AND Steam demo being scheduled well in advance. Myself, I’m looking at this in a more compartmentalized way (the principals involved and their legacy in being part of one of the genre defining games). But as I mentioned before, that was also a function of time and place (a total team effort of the Blizzard Entertainment that existed at that time 25+ years ago).

As for the amount they are looking to raise (to carry things through to an early access launch); while this isn’t a full blown MMO, some of the persistent world features, fully destructible environments, unique biomes, and player driven environmental changes are designs within that same scope. That takes resources (the correct design experience and therefore, money).

We know the expectation for great gameplay and content is going to be on the high side (because of the Blizzard North/Diablo II tie-in’s of this studio; I just have a hard time seeing how even a stretch goal of $1.5 million will be enough to create an early access title that doesn’t feel just ok where players are writing “needs more work and has potential” (NOTE: up until the “update”, this was being written without having tried the alpha yet because I wanted to put these thoughts down first without that demo affecting my base gut feelings).

The FAQ (for the Kickstarter) answers a few questions (some key points: the plan is for it to be buy-to-play and they believe an offline mode is going to be important for the game; the demo provides a single player offline mode).

UPDATE: I started playing the tech demo (single player). For the most part, it is standard ARPG fare in terms of the combat and game play loop, but also has some added mechanics; the jump being one of them (to get out of crowd control situations, to jump over mobs as part of the combat, or to utilize the environment to jump up/over obstacles, to build/create blocks/walls from certain parts of the game world). The dynamically changing world itself is definitely interesting.

For a tech alpha demo, the current artwork and general combat/movement are ok/nothing to say wow about. It does have WASD movement and as the devs stated, the game doesn’t really have the usual pre-defined pathing that an isometric camera style game normally has (the broader freedom of movement feels good; a Mythos style ability to unlock the camera into an actual 3rd person view would be icing on the cake (some of them worked on that MMO after leaving Blizzard North to form Flagship Studio). It’s definitely barebones and rough (no surprise given its very early state) but shows promising potential.

I only hit level 4 (can’t progress past level 8) on my initial limited play (and will continue until I’ve played through what the demo offers (and then maybe try the online part). The slow leveling is meant to extend the game play given the limited demo. The loot was alright but I guess I need to hit a few more levels (unlocking more of the available skill tree and getting good items) to get a better feel for how they impact my character. They only have one class available (witch) at this time and noted they are still working on the class skill tree.

While not the fault of this demo, what’s clear is that ARPG’s have lost their appeal for me. I guess I should be even more specific; gaming in general has remained off my radar (especially after June 2024 when ArcheAge shutdown) except occasionally jumping back into these locally self-run ArcheAge emulators and less so, my TERA offline setups).

Which leads me back to whether or not their Kickstarter (even if it meets the $1.5 million stretch goal), will be sufficient for building out the game into something that would be more impactful for its early access launch (in order to draw in more players for the actual buy to play launch). I do realize the bulk of their initial seed funding probably went into creating the backend foundation (the unsexy but really important stuff if the intention is to build something great on top). Or maybe I’m just used to the cash burn rate for building out an MMO.

Judging from their FAQ, they seem confident about the capabilities they in that backend foundation to add on the features and systems that they want to (including the modding and marketplace options for that). But I guess we will need to see it in action when those systems are roughly implemented.

UPDATE: their Kickstarter has definitely slowed down after the initial day 1 hype (I initially thought they’d clear $150K in the first day). While there are still 29 days left (as of this update), this decreasing pace will not cut it. The supporter rewards are kind of underwhelming and I also understand they don’t want to push a lot of physical merchandise (because that has its own logistical challenges to create and deliver).

Releasing the demo may not have helped; as I noted, it has potential, but I don’t see how this Kickstarter amount (if they reach it) will make a huge impact for early access. If I were to put on the venture capitalist cap, a question I’d be asking is what level of funding being requested, and asking for a theoretical breakdown of how much and where it would be going into (just to hear what the priorities and how they qualify it).

I also believe that constantly associating yourself with this past legacy, is a double-edge sword (because it sets these often times, unrealistic expectations). It’s always been a larger team effort plus the before mentioned time/place of the game industry in those years, the demographic of the players, and the tech available then.

Expectations themselves are different today plus former ARPG enjoyers like myself, have moved on from the genre. The one thing I left out in my short review was how no part of the demo felt fun (a small part of any demo no matter how low the expecations, should be able to convey that). Then after the single player offline game play became severely FPS laggy (as the Necropolis event continued consuming more areas), I stopped playing (only managed to hit level 5). No reason to play a slideshow (I know optimization isn’t great given this is only a very early rough demo).

The take away is that I know some of these first impressions, are going to be lasting ones for some folks. This means the team has to figure out how to motivate the ones sitting on the fence and/or those learning about this, to fund this to its goal or figure out other ways to drum up some new level of excitement. I know overhyping something like a Kickstarter is another issue. But the initial anticipation has passed and the technical demo itself is what it is (lacking any serious wow factor).

What is also not known is what they will do if the goal isn’t met. As it currently stands, I don’t see anything they can do to generate reasonable interest without any pitch coming across as forced. And I doubt their initial plans included putting out an updated demo build to address issues highlighted. I’m thinking that if they don’t meet the goal, they will have to regroup, go through all of the feedback, and maybe reset their funding goals and timeline.

1. the first day, over $100,000 was raised but the last 2 days, it has clearly slowed down (the technical pre-alpha demo and a lot more now being wary of gaming Kickstarters after Ashes of Creation, are definitely weighing on this campaign (the comments also show some cancelled pledges). ︎

The 3 main veterans include Peter Hu, Phil Shenk, and Erich Schaefer (brother of Max Schaefer who was also a lead at Blizzard North). The Schaefer’s also worked on the Torchlight series (Runic Games) and the ill-fated Torchlight Frontiers (Echtra Games). None of these on their own have struck gold anything close to Diablo/Diablo II (since as I’ve noted before, it really is about the time/place and entire team effort).

Since I haven’t really followed gaming in recent years, I did a little bit of research. It seems that back in 2024, the studio managed to secure $4.5 million in seed funding (and that it had originally been founded in 2021 by the three, but only announced the studio to the public in 2022 — though at the time, Schaefer was not listed as one of the founders).

The Darkhaven title was listed on Steam a few weeks ago (stating a demo is near). The thing that stood out to me was at the bottom; fully moddable. The other earlier stuff (with the persistent world environment with unique environments for every player) has me taking a wait and see attitude (because we’ve heard those grand pitches before where not even companies that specialize in MMORPG’s, have been able to deliver on those ambitions).

Genshin Impact has done an incredible job with the large open world design (including lots of verticality for both climbing and gliding, some sailing/underwater designs, many different biomes) for a mostly solo/limited co-op setup where it doesn’t have to worry about large scale persistence (a design that will definitely be more challenging in terms of what Darkhaven is trying to achieve). It will be interesting to see if they are able to pull this off in an OARPG as a small studio.

It does look like there are plans for a Kickstarter campaign (which again, I’ve been very much not into on the gaming side because of the sheer amount of rug pulls/scams that have occurred). Only recently did I actually fund a campaign (Pixelfed) but that was because it was an already shipping product (mobile app, open source server, web based sites); the Kickstarter was for additional funding to extend its development including that of the ActivityPub ecosystem. I ended up pulling that pledge though (as noted in the writeup).

The actual demo will give me a better idea of what I think about Darkhaven going forward (I guess the fact that I am even writing about it, says that is has piqued my interest to a degree).

According to the article, “Hu said Moon Beast’s debut project will remain true to both founders’ ARPG roots, but suggested there’ll also be some big innovations.”

I guess we will find out what this first project will be in the future. Myself, ARPG’s have fallen off a cliff in recent years (plus we know that just because designers previously worked on a franchise, doesn’t always mean it will translate into something that will be anywhere as iconic as those other titles; it is often times a matter of time/place plus the entirety of the team that ended up being involved as was the case with Blizzard North and Blizzard Irvine (South) bringing different qualities to Diablo and Diablo II).