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What is Penny Blood?

Shadow Hearts’ spiritual successor: crowdfunded in a day, sued over, stalled, and, as of late 2026, still alive and still looking for a publisher.

Penny Blood is the Gothic horror RPG that Shadow Hearts creator Matsuzo Machida designed as the series’ successor in all but name and rights: a 1920s alternate history of monster outbreaks, a New York detective, Matthew Farrell, who inherits his father’s power to fuse into holy rather than demonic forms, and a battle system whose Psycho Sigil is the Judgement Ring reborn, Sanity Points and all. Machida directs and writes; Miyako Kato designs the characters; Yoshitaka Hirota leads the music, with Akari Kaida and guest contributions from Nobuo Uematsu and Kenji Ito.

It was announced with Wild Arms creator Akifumi Kaneko’s Armed Fantasia as a Double Kickstarter: a shared goal of $750,000, met in under a day, closing on 30 September 2022 at over $2.6 million (the joint total was ¥379,328,385). A 2025 release was planned. What happened instead is the cautionary tale of crowdfunding’s second act.

THE STATUS, AS OF NOVEMBER 2026

Documented, date by date

Autumn 2023 · the money runs out

By the studio’s own later account, Penny Blood’s Kickstarter production funds were exhausted by autumn 2023 and full production stalled. A companion roguelike, Penny Blood: Hellbound, reached early access in March 2024.

May 2024 · the lawsuit

Machida and Studio Wildrose sued campaign producer Ben Judd and Dangen Entertainment, alleging the production funds raised by the Kickstarter had not been disbursed as contracted. The dispute, still unresolved in public reporting, has shadowed every attempt to sign a new publisher.

2025 to March 2026 · the search

The planned 2025 release passed. In March 2026 the studio told backers it was in discussions with several companies about resuming production, citing rising costs and publishers’ preference for established IP. A prequel novel, Penny Blood: Reviolence, carries a fall 2026 window.

October 2026 · not cancelled, not in production

After Digital Bros cancelled the sibling project Armed Fantasia in September 2026, backers feared the same announcement. Machida’s update of 2 October 2026 says the opposite, plainly: no publisher has yet been found, the industry climate is extremely difficult, and the project has not been given up on. There is no release date. Anyone who tells you otherwise is guessing.

What is Penny Blood?

THE STATUS, AS OF NOVEMBER 2026

THE FIRST WORD