Hey everyone, I wanted to share a proper update with you all. First of all, I’m doing much better lately, and over the past months I’ve spent a lot of time practicing, reflecting, and planning ahead. Reading your messages and community posts also helped me reconnect with my excitement for this project, so thank you for that.
After a lot of thought, I’ve decided that Hardenville will continue development as a full reboot rather than picking up where it left off. When I first started the project 3–4 years ago, I was still learning DAZ, Ren’Py, and AVN development in general. At the time, I was happy with what I made, but looking back, the project lacked proper structure, planning, and polish. The story felt unfocused, the scenes were messy and poorly optimized, and I was trying to do too many things at once. I made several attempts to fix Episode 2 and improve earlier mistakes, but it never came together in a way I felt proud of. So instead of continuing something that felt too rough and inconsistent, I’m choosing to start fresh and rebuild Hardenville properly using everything I’ve learned about rendering, scene building, storytelling, and progression. The reboot will begin with Episode 1 rather than a prologue, taking inspiration from the original opening but improving it significantly.
Current roadmap:
Episode 1: The Wedding (2026)
Episode 2: Honeymoon + Vacation Part 1 (hopefully late 2026)
Episode 3: Honeymoon + Vacation Part 2
Episodes 4–5: Back in Hardenville
All characters will move from Genesis 8/8.1 to Genesis 9, which opens the door for better assets, improved realism, and a smoother workflow overall. They won’t look exactly the same, but they’ll remain faithful to their original designs, personalities, relationships, and identities. The goal is to keep the original charm of Hardenville while rebuilding it in a much more polished, structured, and professional way.
Going forward:
Patreon and SubscribeStar will be temporarily paused and will reopen when the reboot’s Episode 1 is released. March will be the last monthly render for now so I can fully focus on development.
The game will remain on Steam and Itch.io. When the reboot releases, it will replace the current version, while the original version will remain available as free Legacy DLC.
Existing Steam and Itch.io owners will receive the reboot at no extra cost.
I’ll be posting 1–2 public progress updates per month here on Discord.
Future releases will be English only for now so I can stay focused on core development.
In the coming weeks:
Hardenville (Legacy) will receive one final update for the Prologue + Episode 1.
This update will include a large gallery of all monthly and special renders released so far, including variations.
It will be released on both Steam and Itch.io and clearly marked as the Legacy Edition.
This wasn’t an easy decision, but I truly believe it’s the right one. I’d rather rebuild Hardenville into something I can be proud of than keep forcing something that never felt good enough. Thank you all for the patience and support. It really means a lot, and I’m excited to finally move forward with a clearer direction.