Creator of video game Elite, David Braben, has raised about £1.3m through crowd-sourcing site Kickstarter to update the classic space trading game.
Braben told the BBC that, "It was an ambitious target but that is so that it was set at a realistic level to be able to make the game."
The updated game, Elite: Dangerous, will feature the central trading, travel and spaceship combat elements of the original, while incorporating enhanced graphics and featuring a larger portion of the universe for people to play in.
Braben told Sky News that a long time back, banks would fund projects similar to the company’s current project, while nowadays, there’s no chance."Publishers are driven by profitability. There hasn’t been a game like this for a decade and they tend to be very cautious, preferring games to be like Call of Duty," Braben said. "As a result, video games have become a little stale."
Even though some early work on the multiplayer title had been done at Braben’s game studio Frontier Developments, the firm required investment to convert the code into a finished, playable product.
As part of the project, the game will also be developed for Apple Macs.