For those who love the smell of napalm in the morning, and video games, you need to head to Kickstarter right now. Francis Ford Coppola and team are crowdfunding an Apocalypse Now video game here.

With a goal of $900 000, at time of publishing the project already had $42945 behind it, coming from 981 backers. Interestingly, the Apocalypse Now video will not be a first person shooter (fps) as one would suspect, but rather a survival horror.

Executive producer, Lawrence Liberty states, “I want to make a game where you can sit on the boat and drop acid, if that’s what you want to do.” How that fits into survival horror we suppose depends on the ferocity of your trip. In the Kickstarter video, Francis Ford Coppola relates the story of how he told his editor that the more he works on Apocalypse Now, the crazier he will get. He then proceeds to express his hope that the same will happen to those who experience the video game.  

With Coppola onboard, why then funding through Kickstarter? For one, the team believes traditional game companies will want to turn it into a fps. On the Kickstarter page they also mention that it’s to receive “the creative freedom and integrity that this daring and intense tale demands”, so it’s pretty much about retaining creative authority over the project.

In case you’re wondering if it’s currently just a concept, well the team includes “AAA game developers, motion picture professionals and interactive creatives,” which have worked on, amongst others, Fallout: New Vegas, Everquest, The Witcher, Neverwinter Nights 2 and more. What’s more, there is also a working prototype of the game, with “thousands of hours spent on pre-production”.

Pledges now starts at $35, with a number of cool rewards that escalates the more bucks you drop. If you have $10 000 lying around somewhere, you can get, amongst others, your face scanned to get your own non-player character in the game, a tour of the Family Coppola Archives, and actual props from the Apocalypse Now set.

If it gets the backing it needs in the next 29 days, the Apocalypse Now video game is set for release in October 2020.