Hey everyone, as promised, Gaia 1.0 is now in open beta. There was a small private beta going on for about 2 weeks now and most new bugs that appeared with all the new features have been fixed. But there needs to be more testing done before the final release.
If you want to enroll in the open beta right now, head on to your Steam library -> right click on the game -> Properties -> Betas and choose the beta branch. Your game should automatically start updating to the new, semi final version of Gaia.
As discussed in previous dev blogs, the final version comes with tons of content updates, ranging from underwater gameplay, to 3 new biomes, 8 new maps, tons of new items, a few new animals, Spanish translation and some game mechanic changes. One important mechanic change that old players of Gaia should know about is that gold and diamond has been split into the raw version, which can only be found underwater, and the normal version, which can only be crafted at the forge using the raw version. More info is displayed in the description on these items.
The planned full release date of the game is some time later this month or the next! Since a lot of new content has been added to the base game, the base price of the game will increase. Thank you to everyone who chose to support this game during the Early Access period!
So what's the plan until the full release? Well, there's some finishing touches left to do here and there and fix any potential new bugs reported by you guys participating in the open beta. There's also the matter of doing some administrative work, such as updating the storepage, updating other languages and whatnot. Also looking into having the game translated into simplified Chinese, seeing as there have been quite a few reviews from Chinese players. If you know anyone interested in this, please let me know.
Eager to see your feedback on the forums!