Good news, everyone: Carmageddon, the classic and highly violent crash racing series, is finally back. Its newest game, Reincarnation, is heading to Steam Early Access next year. However, not all fans are happy.
In an update to the game's Kickstarter project, which concluded last year, developer Stainless Games announced that the Early Access version of Carmageddon: Reincarnation would be launching on Steam in Q1 2014. However, Stainless also revealed that backers who pledged for a copy of the game would get access to a so-called "standard package bundle." The full press release, posted on the game's website, offers further clarification on what that means:
Once the Early Access programme launches, players will have the option to buy the game content at a variety of tiered prices, starting with the standard game package and leading up to a full package bundle that will include all DLC and all future released material at an all-inclusive price.
The update also mentioned a giveaway, where anyone who would contact the developers on Twitter would be entered in a contest to win one of 99 full package bundle codes.
Immediately, comments began appearing under the update bemoaning the existence of paid DLC—a topic not discussed in any of the previous updates. Others noted with frustration that Stainless Games would start a Twitter-based competition for free full bundle codes while handing their own backers (including those that pledged over $50) bare-bones copies of the game.
Projects not ending up as they were advertised is one of the inherent risks of Kickstarter; still, it would be a shame to see Carmageddon's return get overshadowed by unsatisfactory pre-order deals. In any case, Kotaku will be keeping an eye on the game and will update this post in case there's news.
UPDATE: Jason Garber of Stainless Games contacted Kotaku with the following statement, which was also published in the Kickstarter update's comment section:
Simply put, everyone who pledged on Kickstarter will get the complete game. Kickstarter Backers will get the Early Access content, plus all subsequent updates that go together to make up the complete game. The “complete game” is what it says – the full-featured game as originally described, with multiple environments, cars, peds and events.
It’s common practice to offer DLC for games – hell, we did the equivalent back in 1998 when we released The Splat Pack for Carmageddon. DLC is the additional content we offer after the game is finished and complete because we want to keep the game fresh and new for our players long after its release. The $625k raised by our Kickstarter fans has contributed to development of the complete game. These Kickstarter funds are not being used to fund DLC development.
We hope that fans of the game will be excited to expand their game with more stuff from us here at Stainless, as well as the CarMODgeddon content that will be coming from the community as well.
UPDATE: In yet another Kickstarter update, Stainless Games announced their decision to give backers who pledged for a copy of the game access to the full package, future DLC included.
As the day went on, we kept discussing the feedback from the community, and it became clear that they had a valid point. And so we’ve decided to act on that point. We've concluded that the fair thing to do would be to make this announcement – that EVERY Kickstarter and Paypal Backer who pledged the $15 and above for a copy of the game will be eligible to get The Full Package. They'll get the full, final version of Carmageddon: Reincarnation and ALL DLC, for the REST OF TIME.
The Dawn of Early Access [Kickstarter]
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