Hello everyone,
Tim Campbell here. We’d like to take a moment to reflect on where [i]Stormgate [/i]is today and share our vision for the road ahead. Those of you who have been following our journey already know that the last few months have been incredibly challenging for us, though they’ve also been deeply enlightening.
We know that our Early Access launch didn’t meet your expectations–or ours. We felt pressure to get our game into players’ hands, but doing so before the game could make a positive first impression was the wrong move. Key areas of the game needed significantly more time to develop and we released far too early. That mistake is on us, and we regret it.
While this was a tough lesson, we’ve taken it to heart. Going forward, we need to give things more time to cook. Unfortunately, there’s no save and reload in real life, and ever since we kicked off Early Access, we’ve been working hard to figure out the best path forward. Today, our team remains committed to delivering a [i]Stormgate [/i]experience worthy of your time and passion. We believe that, despite the rocky start, we can still achieve something great.
Refocusing and Reshaping
We are moving forward as a leaner, more focused team. Our top development priorities are now crystal clear: the [b]Campaign [/b]and [b]Versus (1v1)[/b] play (our “moment-to-moment RTS gameplay”), followed immediately by our [b]Team Mayhem[/b] mode. We need to get the foundational modes polished as a precursor to adding more innovation. These core experiences are where we’re dedicating the bulk of our effort, and we believe these modes have the potential to truly shine after we’ve dedicated more time to them. Other features, like the map editor and expanded Co-op content, are still part of our longer term planning, but they won’t take priority until we’ve gotten further along with the other key modes. We know many of you really want to get started making maps and building mods and new game modes, but we need to be smart about how to allocate our limited resources and we are focusing on the core game experiences first and foremost. We’ve updated our Roadmap accordingly (you can see the new version below), but as always, remember that development plans may evolve as we continue to listen to your feedback.
[i]Side note:[/i] Fully Customizable Hotkeys are a top priority for us, listed first on the Roadmap for a reason. We agree with those of you who have let us know that they’re long overdue and our team will breathe a collective sigh of relief once they’re finally in the game.
