Early Access Update #7: One Year in Early Access

Congratulations to everyone on the first birthday of the Corsairs Legacy game!

One year ago, we opened Early Access to the Corsairs Legacy game, where we showed its basic mechanics.

We understood the risk of an unsuccessful start because the game level was far from what we had planned. However, we are an indie studio, and the lack of external funding pushed us to make precisely this decision: to open access to the game and continue working on it, taking into account the feedback and suggestions of the players.

Initial sales were lower than we expected, forcing us to make significant changes in the organization of the development process and the vision of the final result. We had to cut all possible costs and significantly reduce the number of team members.

From the beginning, we wanted to create a high-quality game that players would enjoy, and we have not abandoned this goal.

We analyzed the feedback from the players and saw that in the first three years of full development, we made the necessary foundation for the game. Now, there was an opportunity and a need to implement an open world and fill it with content.

The first major update after the start of early access had to wait five months, during which time we were moving the game from story rails to an open world. Then, we tried to release one major monthly update and minor updates with edits occasionally.

Today, we are releasing the seventh big content update and launching a holiday game sale on Steam. This year, we have increased the percentage of positive reviews from 37% at the start to 70+ % and increased the average playing time of players in the game from 2 to 11 hours. When the game is fully released, we plan to have 20-30 hours of interesting content in the open world and continue to develop it afterward.

Today's update adds new game mechanics and additional content to the open world:

1. We added treasure mechanics. After defeating an enemy ship captain, the player can find a map of the deceased captain with information on where he kept all his fortune. The map description will help the player understand which island to look for the dead captain's chest. Once you are at the desired location, you can activate the marker, which will lead you to the treasure;

2. Battles of enemy squadrons have been added to the global map, which the player can join;

3. You can now access all the achievements available on Steam. We have removed all the outdated ones and added relevant ones;

4. We added the mechanics of wear and tear of cold weapons and firearms from their usage and added items for their care. If the player does not monitor the weapon's condition, it reduces its quality level and characteristics after reaching a critical state. You can increase the quality level of weapons at blacksmiths using the necessary items;

5. We added background conversations of characters that can be heard while passing by;

6. We added the death of the team due to hunger or disease in the event of a lack of food or medicine while sailing on the global map;

7. We added a display of the player's ship in bays when the player is on islands;

8. We significantly redesigned the key ground routes of the player's movement around Bridgetown. Now, there is a new convenient passage between the store and the warehouse, as well as an improved route from the pier to the city;

9. The visual part of Bridgetown has been improved;

10. We were able to return the day change system to the global map without degrading the new, improved visual of the global map;

11. Additional blacksmiths have appeared in all towns;

12. We added a new system for sorting items in the backpack and at street traders;

13. Sleeping in the tavern now also restores energy;

14. Night and rain lighting options have been added to the Bridgetown tavern;

15. Rain sound has been added to the prison and Bridgetown tavern locations;

16. We added many new sounds: opening a chest, taking items out of a backpack, sounds for the actions “chose” and “hide” weapons;

17. We fixed the problem of constant rain;

18. We fixed the problem of two background soundtracks in the cemetery;

19. We fixed the problem of the game freezing when opening the trade window;

20. We fixed the NPCs in the Tobago tavern;

21. We fixed the amount of money that the player will receive for transporting a passenger if he manages to increase the cost of the trip using charisma;

22. We fixed numerous bugs you wrote to us about and that we saw in analytics. We reworked the walls in boarding scenes, so if you still have NPCs or the main character falling overboard, or the boarding does not end (even though all enemies are killed), write to us about it.

Since the last video diary, released 2 months ago, we have released three significant and two minor updates. We would like to note that the Tech-5 team traditionally helped us in working on all of them - they have been supporting Corsairs Legacy in technical matters since the first days of early access. Let's briefly talk about the significant changes added to them:

1. We added a system of new passenger delivery quests with different developments and achievements for them. Passengers can contact the main character in all five taverns, or you can start the quest yourself by talking to the tavern owner;

2. We implemented the ability to buy and sell ships at the shipyard;

3. We added a system of ship upgrades with the ability to apply 15 upgrades to any ship;

4. We added the ability to throw the cargo overboard and pick it up from sunken ships, receiving additional experience for this;

5. The game now has 21 ship skills available to the player after reaching level 10;

6. At the audience's request on Steam, we added tips for the player to the loading screen. We have divided all the game features into categories according to game mechanics, and the player will see advice on precisely the mechanics that will be available after loading;

7. The combat system has been significantly reworked: delays from pressing a key to the hero's action in battle have been reduced; additional animation interruptions have been added for more dynamic gameplay;

8. The combat dynamics have been increased, and the enemy AI logic has been improved;

9. A new intro video has been added at the beginning of the game.

See you in the vastness of Corsairs Legacy!