I looked at their new Kickstarter earlier. It looks like the project is now the modern day stuff with the detective (now played by the former Solid Snake, David Hayter) with the Klara/Elizabeth Bathory story interspersed throughout. Theodric is still in the website and new trailer, but I'm not sure how he fits in, maybe his story is the tutorial or another flashback. To say Precursor Games is "ditching the episodic nature" is a bit of a stretch. This sounds like the first episode of the original crowdfunding campaign and the game will probably end with a cliffhanger to what they hope is the rest of the game/more episodes.
A few things (assuming it gets funded):
1. There's no f-ing way this thing is going to be eight to ten hours long. I beat Eternal Darkness far sooner than Silicon Knight's estimate (I believe they said 20+, don't quote me on that) and I got everything (e.g. all paths, Enchanted Gladius, Mantarok rune) in less than 15.
2. $20 wouldn't be bad if this was an entire game (like Trine 2 which I paid $20 for), but it's probably still meant to be 1/12 of one or 1/6 at best (on the website, half the characters were cut, notably the Pious Augustus and Alex Roivas looking silhouettes) and the original Kickstarter had a tier that offered all episodes for like $50. Hmm...
3. I don't think it's too difficult to see how they cut the budget in half. $750,000 is probably closer to what it should have cost to release the first episode, but Precursor Games wanted a leg up on the next episode.
I'm still not interested in contributing to the game, but like I said before, I'll buy it if it comes out.