Veins of Iron Launches Kickstarter for Ambitious SNES First-Person Shooter

Developer Mode VII launches a €9,900 Kickstarter for Veins of Iron, a gothic SNES FPS targeting 30fps using a Raspberry Pi RP2350B coprocessor cartridge.

The Super Nintendo is receiving another technically ambitious project with the launch of the Veins of Iron Kickstarter campaign on October 20. Developer Mode VII is seeking €9,900 to complete a gothic first-person shooter inspired by Wolfenstein 3D. The project promises twenty levels, five weapons, eight enemy types and four boss encounters, with a target frame rate of thirty frames per second on original SNES hardware. Achieving that performance requires more than conventional cartridge programming. The developer plans to use a custom cartridge incorporating a Raspberry Pi RP2350B microcontroller, equipped with dual ARM Cortex-M33 processing cores running at 150MHz. The cartridge also contains additional flash storage and memory, effectively providing the console with a substantial processing assistant. This approach resembles the historical use of enhancement chips in cartridges, although the proposed hardware is considerably more powerful than the SNES itself. Physical PAL and NTSC editions are planned, with boxed rewards advertised at €99. The crowdfunding campaign had already attracted dozens of backers shortly after opening, but funding progress should not be confused with completed development or guaranteed delivery. The project has also attracted criticism for its promotional artwork, which currently includes AI-generated imagery. Lead developer Jan Olausson has stated that this material is temporary and that the actual game graphics and assembly programming were not generated through AI tools. Veins of Iron demonstrates how modern cartridge technology can extend the capabilities of classic consoles. Whether it becomes an impressive new SNES shooter or another ambitious unfinished experiment will depend on the development work that follows.