Can Resident Evil 2: The Board Game outdo Dark Souls on Kickstarter?

Dark Souls: The Board Game creator Steamforged is back on Kickstarter with its latest video game-inspired project, Resident Evil 2.

Based on the classic 1998 survival horror sequel, Resident Evil 2: The Board Game bears some resemblance to Dark Souls, translating the zombie-killing action to a co-op dungeon crawler set in the streets of Raccoon City.

There seems to be more of a story than in Dark Souls, with missions set up using scenario cards; the £70 core box apparently contains more than 20 hours’ worth of gameplay.

In fitting with the survival horror theme, resource management is said to be key to the gameplay, as players decide whether to spend vital ammo killing zombies or take the risk and run past them.

The tension ramps up through use of a ‘tension deck’, which can spawn new zombies, trigger events and apply other effects during each character’s turn.

Dark Souls’ boss decks have evolved into the behaviour cards of bigger baddies who may appear during each encounter. The core set includes William Birkin in his third stage of mutation and the G-mutant, plus the smaller foes of 12 zombies, two zombie dogs and a licker.

The player characters include Leon S Kennedy, Robert Kendo, Claire Redfield and Ada Wong, although the Kickstarter has already unlocked a host of extra heroes and villains after smashing its £150,000 target with an hour. The board game is currently set for a release date next September.

With almost £260,000 pledged at the time of writing, Kicktraq has Resident Evil 2 trending towards £3.9 million raised by the time its campaign ends on October 23rd – which would top Dark Souls' £3.8 million, becoming the most-funded board game on Kickstarter at the time. However, it still won't be enough to outpace the current king of Kickstarter, Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5, which picked up a staggering $12.4 million (£9.2m) earlier this year.