Hey folks! We had hoped to release the game in Early Access this year. We have done everything we could to make this happen, however, we have since made the decision to push the release date back a few more months into February.
The following reasons are what led to this decision:
- The earliest we felt that Cursed Crew would be ready for Early Access was the end of 2023, however, this turns out to be a bad time to release indie titles due to the competition that AAA games pose. Larger titles frequently release during the Christmas season, which will end up burying us on the front page of Steam’s new releases.
- These days even Early Access titles come with high expectations of quality and replayability. We want to ensure that the quality of Cursed Crew, even in Early Access, will meet those expectations. We feel that spending a few more months will get us closer to that ideal, as well as improve the overall experience of the players.
Our initial estimate was made based on the speed of development at the time when we started. We realized earlier this year that it is more pragmatic to spend extra time to ensure new mechanics and content are developed and tested thoroughly before moving on in order to avoid requiring changes down the road. As we’ve grown as a team, we have also raised our own expectations for quality of work. This means more time spent on features in order to ensure the end result is in the best possible state. While this does increase development time, it will result in fewer bugs and balance issues upon release. We believe this was a positive change in the long term and that Cursed Crew will benefit greatly from solid mechanics and a framework that allows us to continue to add new content rapidly.
Pushing the release date back was not an easy decision to make but we feel strongly that this was the right choice. We very much want this game to succeed and will continue to work on it as diligently as before. If you have questions feel free to ask us via email ([email protected]) or on our Discord server. The discord server is also a great place to follow the development of our game.
- Cracklewock Games