Thank you all for your support and for following Mahou Arms development! We have some announcements to make about our release roadmap and the scope of the game.
We are nearing version 1.0 of Mahou Arms and our graduation from Early Access on Steam, however Mahou Arms 1.0 will look different from what we had promised at the outset. This is certainly disappointing, but games change as they are developed. We're a small team with limited resources, so we can only make so much game, even if we want to do more. In some ways, the game has already grown bigger than we expected thanks to your support.
There are three main differences:
We will have two playable characters instead of three (more on this later).
There will be no base building mechanics. We prototyped the feature, but it didn't fit in the game well so we scrapped it.
Socialization mechanics will be scaled down in favor of romance quest lines, which we feel is a better fit for how the game has evolved.
On a brighter note, there are things in the game now that we hadn't promised, like increased gameplay variety (drone racing, cyberspace battles, rail shooter sections), combat spells, and settlements with side quests.
So what does 1.0 look like then? Since Mahou Arms is a single player game, we will consider it to be done when the main story quest is playable from start to end. However, we do plan to continue working on the game after release to fix bugs, make refinements, and add extra content. In particular, we would like to add additional side quests, voice acting, translations, and any other in-progress content that doesn't get finished in time for 1.0's release.
As for the reduction in the number of characters, a third character is still a possibility (Seiko is still a part of the story), but two will be our base case. If we add a third playable character, we want to make sure they are refined, fun to play, and well integrated into the story with unique story missions. At this stage we aren't certain we can deliver that with our current resources, but we will see.
In terms of a timeline, we just released version 0.5 and there are three more major planned releases (excluding bug fixes and minor releases). The first release (0.6) will be available in Q4 2025 and will include chapter 6. The next release (1.0) will be available in Q1 2026 and will contain chapter 7, 8, and 9 (the final chapter). We will follow 1.0 with 1.1 sometime in Q2 2026 which will contain the previously mentioned extra content to enhance the game.
Thank you all for being patient and supporting the game. We know it's taken longer than expected, but we're still proud of what we've created and we sincerely hope you will enjoy it.