After a short hiatus, Japanese Soulsborne YouTuber Narunii (The Lore Knight) has made a new update on the development progress of his trouble-ridden dark fantasy action game Chikai no Fuchi (Oath’s Abyss), for which he initially crowdfunded a whopping $320k USD. Despite facing numerous problems (and waves of backlash) that practically reverted the project to back to zero, Narunii reassures his audience that Chikai no Fuchi’s development is back on track. However, he also explains that the project’s remaining budget size might not be enough to cover its originally planned scope.
To provide some background, Chikai no Fuchi started out as Narunii’s passion project, with a crowdfunding goal of about $192k USD and the backing of renowned industry veterans such as Dark Souls composer Motoi Sakuraba. The project hit its goal in only 4 days, ultimately raising about $320k. However, after missing its initial release window in 2024, Chikai no Fuchi was indefinitely postponed. In December 2025, Narunii announced that the project’s director and main programmer had left the team due to internal turmoil, and the production was inevitably put to a halt. What’s more, the YouTuber later found out that the game’s development had barely even progressed in the past three years of development, deciding to rebuild the entire thing from scratch alongside a brand-new team.
As Narunii reports on his X account, the game is actively in development. However, it’s ultimately being weighed down by limited resources. “If we decide to move forward with our current plan from start to finish, I reckon we would need ten times the funds we currently have access to,” he explains. In one of his previous updates, Narunii stated that he only had about 10 million yen left of the crowdfunded assets, meaning that it would take approximately 100 million yen to cover the current scope of production (the current size of the budget for Chikai no Fuchi hasn’t been confirmed, so these numbers might be inaccurate).
Ultimately, Narunii explains that the scope of the project right now exceeds what his team is able to cover using “sheer willpower,” which is why they are trying to figure out how to cut costs and reduce the game’s contents while maintaining only the essential parts.
That being said, a possible way to expand the budget for Chikai no Fuchi would be the IP360 content industry support initiative which was recently announced by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The program will provide funding for the creation of new IPs, making even indie developers eligible for grants of up to 10 million yen (about $62,000 USD), and Narunii notes that he is making preparations to apply.
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