Drifter's Tales won't participate in the Next Fest and will not have a relaunch

TL;DR Steam has unilaterally decided to cancel our relaunch, canceling our participation to the Next Fest at the same time. We are working on a solution to not abandon our players.

A few hours ago, Steam informed us of their cancellation of our relaunch. It is with a broken heart that we write these lines, because their simple decision has big consequences on the last year of work we have done to give you the update you deserve.

We initially had to release this relaunch under a new page to have a fresh start and take advantage of the features that Steam offers to new games:

• The possibility of launching a demo before the release of the game
• Participation in the Steam Next Fest
• A boost in visibility at launch

The relaunch page was validated by Steam on June 24th, 2023 and we began marketing operations to ensure enough wishlists for the launch.

We informed on December 2nd of our desire to upload a new game while sending Steam keys to the buyers of the initial version. Steam told us that we cannot send keys to people who have already purchased the original game. In the interest of fairness, we decided to send keys to our entire community as well as to people who contacted us on our support channels, while offering free DLC covering the story of the original game with reworked mechanics.

On January 10th, a few minutes after completing our demo, Steam without explanation placed the relaunch page back in “rewiew”. This is not supposed to happen - once the page is validated, the concept itself is validated by Steam. A few days later, Steam informed us that we no longer had authorization to release the relaunch.

This has serious consequences for us, as well as our community:

• Despite our efforts to address all community comments during the relaunch, we will keep the - justified - comments from players from the initial version forever
• The relaunch will not be able to take advantage of events such as Steam Next Fest, as well as the press coverage associated with it
• We will not be able to take advantage of the launch boost offered by Steam for new games
• The release plan as well as the marketing plan that we have put in place must be completely redone, and we are losing all our efforts on the new page – along with the wishlists on it

We are currently working on a solution to provide you with this new version – because you deserve it. Our players are the reason for our game, and it is our mission to deliver the results of this past year.

We will come back to you in a few days with a solution and an update plan that will be done on the game you already own. Because even if we are the losers in Steam's unilateral decision, there is no reason that our players should be losers too.

Regards,

Teddy