The developer of Battalion 1944 has announced all Kickstarter backers will get a full refund regardless of platform, pledge tier, or time played in the game.
In an unusual move, Bulkhead Interactive said all 10,096 backers, who had collectively pledged £317,281 to help bring the World War 2-themed first-person shooter to life, will receive refund instructions via email.
Battalion 1944 was Bulkhead’s first multiplayer game, and was made by a team of 18 people in just 19 months. While it enjoyed a strong early access launch in 2019, with a number of high-profile streamers bigging it up, Battalion 1944 suffered a significant drop-off soon after.
Bulkhead was acquired by fellow UK developer Splash Damage in December, and it’s Splash Damage who is helping to provide the funds for the mass refund. Explaining the decision, Bulkhead boss Joe Brammer admitted the studio failed to deliver on its promises, including the release of a console version.
“When we launched the Battalion 1944 Kickstarter we set out to ‘recapture the core of classic multiplayer shooters’. That line connected us to our backers and who financially supported our vision to celebrate everything that was great about that era of shooters,” said Bulkhead boss Joe Brammer.
“Ultimately, we couldn’t fully deliver on all that we set out to do, most of all the release of the console version. Without that initial Kickstarter support, Bulkhead wouldn’t exist today. We want to thank our backers for believing in the project as strongly and as passionately as we did – but as we were unable to accomplish all the goals we initially set, we have decided to fully refund all of our original Kickstarter backers.”
Richard Jolly, boss of Splash Damage, admitted “there have certainly been times when we fell short of our promises, and let our community down”.
Battalion 1944 is currently free to play on Steam, where it is dubbed Battalion: Legacy and has a mixed user review rating. A number of these reviews complain about Battalion failing to live up to its Kickstarter promise, and single out the developers for leaving the game behind.
The refunds appear to mark a closing of the book on Battalion for Bulkhead, which is now working on sandbox FPS Wardogs and supporting Splash Damage on Transformers: Reactivate.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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