Since the Kickstarter campaign and the Early Access premiere in 2019, we’ve been constantly and openly showing you our work progress by updating the game (Mega Patches), by patching it (fixes, minor updates), by Weekly Reports and daily publications on our social media channels. The time has come to share something that deserves special attention.
We’ve got two important pieces of news for you.
Both are good, but some of you may have expected a bit of other information.
The first news is that despite the pandemics hitting the world pretty hard, we were developing the game right on the schedule (remember Roadmap?). But then again, we will have to wait for the final PC version until Q2 2021.
Why is that good news? Our plans have grown bigger. We have decided to hold the premiere and not to focus on delivering additional content AFTER the premiere - and the most crucial reason behind this decision is to be able to translate the game into more languages than we’ve previously promised. Thanks to cooperation with our publisher, All in! Games, the Chernobylite plot and interface will be additionally translated professionally into Italian, Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese. Besides that, all language versions were fully rewritten and polished (stylistics mostly). As for the voiceovers (English & Russian) - we’re re-recording them from scratch in a professional studio with professional voice actors.
Thanks to that, the overall experience coming from the game should become incomparably more exciting and immersive. Unfortunately, due to how big the game is (Chernobylite has multiple times more plot text lines than any of our previous titles), the process of adding and testing new translations is time-consuming and that’s the reason we won’t be able to finish and polish it in Q1 2021.
The second good news
is that most of the team, which doesn’t take part in the translation “business,” will not sit idle and wait. We’ve promised you that Chernobylite will have our constant support and development, even after we leave Early Access, and we’re going to prove it again.
Moving premiere to Q2 2021, simultaneously, we’re creating new content and gameplay elements that previously were supposed to be published as DLCs. This means that the final version of Chernobylite will be bigger and filled with new content, which will enrich the experience and make playing it even more pleasurable. Among these additions, you’ll find a new location, new weapons, new enemies, extended cooperation with other in-game characters and tons of fixes in the existing mechanics and tools.
All of you who bought our game in Early Access or supported us during the Kickstarter campaign will get that new content completely free of charge and as a part of standard Chernobylite updates. The nearest MegaPatch will appear as planned (winter). Still, after it you can expect at least one additional content extension before the premiere - not to mention regular fixes and updates, which will appear whenever needed.
We’d also like to remind you that the console version of Chernobylite is under heavy development and it should be finished in the following months. The PC version premiere, which will be close to the console versions premiere, will not only allow us to make more buzz around Chernobylite and reach out to players that didn’t yet come across our game but also to continue the development of the project as after-the-premiere support (more DLCs and MegaPatches in the months following the premieres).
Soon we’ll be able to share the date of the premiere and we won’t hesitate to do that as soon as we can!
At the very end, we’d like to really thank you all for your support - we hear many kind words from you. We believe that you’ll understand the decision. Its goal is to provide our game with the best development possible.