Previously on the Areal saga, all this happened . To summarise: Areal turns up on Kickstarter, claiming to be a game "from the developers of the cult hit STALKER". People—including the ex-Stalker devs of Vostock Games—were unhappy that, in their pitch video, West Games used footage taken from Stalker and various off-the-shelf Unity assets, without clearly mentioning that neither are reflective of the product they're creating. The scepticism surrounding Areal hasn't dissipated—culminating most recently with a Reddit AMA in which many users accused West Games of avoiding their questions. Now, still short of their $50,000 goal, the team are instead trying the one thing that might help their PR problem: releasing game footage. It hasn't worked.
As Eurogamer note , people are now pointing out —in the Kickstarter post's own comments —how similar the assets are to environment packages available on the Unity store. If true, it's significant because West Games have previously claimed that Areal will use its own engine. It's just another step in a tale that started out bizarre and has, at times, become downright ugly .
Areal has six days left to secure its remaining funding.
