Physical Backers of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Hit with Unexpected Shipping Costs

Successful Kickstarter project and spiritual successor to the Suikoden series, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is out in a couple of weeks, on 23rd April and it looks to be a true love letter to fans of classic JRPGs. It’s unfortunate, then, that several backers have been met with unexpected and expensive shipping costs at the eleventh hour, in some cases almost doubling the amount spent backing the project.

Over on the game’s Kickstarter page (thanks, Eurogamer), a number of irate supporters have called out developer Rabbit & Bear Studios for some “ridiculous” shipping fees. One questioned why their order had been shipped from Germany to Oceania rather than from Japan: “Why would you quadruple the distance and prices for us? Since the very beginning, you promised shipping would be from the nearest fulfilment centre, so why was all of Oceania (and many Asian countries, too) swapped away from shipping from Japan? Another wrote: “Mine’s $54 to Malaysia (PC Steam). I backed the game for $60….”

Rabbit and Bear address the situation in an update, with the developer apologising but standing firm: “First of all, we deeply apologise for the misunderstanding and confusion caused by all the different explanations about shipping. At the beginning of the campaign, we stated that shipping would be calculated later as an additional cost. It was difficult to determine shipping costs during the 2020 campaign, and our policy was always to determine shipping costs at the time of actual shipping. We are trying our best to keep shipping costs at the lowest possible level, but there are issues with the shipping source and the arrangements to ensure delivery before the release.”

We’ll leave it to affected backers to determine whether that passes muster or not, but what’s more curious is the cause of all this confusion, which the developer blames on “misinformation” from an unknown source: “In the early days of the Eiyuden Discord, a statement was made claiming that the developer would pay for the shipping costs, but this was misinformation. We are still investigating where this information came from.”