How soon is Chapter 2?

In this blog I will be talking about progress made, what’s still left to do and what our plans are around the Chapter 2 release.

First of all, I want to apologise for the lack of updates both in blog and patch release in recent months. I have been sick on and off since the end of last year and have not felt up to writing a blog post nor releasing a patch. We’ve also been holding off on writing about progress until our plans were more concrete. Before we get into that though, let’s go over what’s been done.

What’s done?

We’ve designed, scripted and tested all the maps for Chapter 2. Playtesting is complete and we’re happy with how everything has turned out. There will probably still be tweaks while we work going forward, but we’ve accomplished what we set out to for Chapter 2. The campaign features 6 new maps, each with a lot of effort poured into them and their own clear theme. You will also find a new region to choose from in skirmish mode called the ruins. Most other chapter 2 related features have already been trickled into patches through the last year, so those of you who have played the game recently will already be familiar with them.

What’s left to do?

We intend to learn from the mistakes of our Chapter 1 release, which mostly involved marketing and exposure. Firstly we’ve been working on a new trailer video; the original trailer has very out-dated footage, and it also didn’t represent the gameplay as well as it could have. The new video (which is nearing completion) focuses on the different aspects of the game as the player would experience it, which should offer better insight into what players will be getting into.

We also intend to release a demo with Chapter 2. We hadn’t originally planned to, in part because we hadn’t settled on the game mechanics yet so it couldn’t offer a good representation. However, we have since deliberated on the pros and cons for releasing gameplay demos, and our ideas have changed. No matter how good our store-page write-up is, nothing is better at giving players an idea of the game than being able to play it. Similarly, nothing is better for players to identify if their computers live up to the hardware requirements than that same answer.

This then lead us to our main goals for what the demo should feature, which is a vertical slice of gameplay. There will be no campaign nor multiple modes to play, but instead simply one map/mode to enjoy. No time-limits or save-restrictions.

We are also aware that one thing that propels interest in games on steam is sales. We originally planned on holding off until the game is fully out, but this plan has changed as well. We want the game to have more attention, and this seems to be an effective way to do that, so we decided to put the game on sale for the Chapter 2 release.

What took so long?

It’s healthy to reflect on one’s shortcomings and in this case that would predominantly be time. I’d like to be able to say the delays we’ve had in releasing Chapter 2 were because of one specific thing, but the reality is just a series of hurdles. Our iterative refinement process makes it hard for us to put a date or deadline to things. We wanted to settle on the game’s design as well as resolve any game-breaking or mood-breaking issues for Chapter 2, and that took longer than expected. We’ve also faced a lot of obstacles in general. Since this is a project that we dedicate our spare time to, sometimes other work has to take priority.

Even so, I would like to apologise for how long it has taken to reach this stage, and it may well feel to some of you that Chapter 2 will never arrive. Chapter 2 will actually be releasing this year. I cannot give an exact date yet, but once we have no marketing resources left to create/organise, we will provide 2 weeks notice, and then it will go live.

That’s all for now, until next time!

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