The Department — Spring Update
Shwmae, Detectives.
It’s been a full-on first quarter of 2026 here at COPA Gaming. We’ve made fantastic progress behind the scenes and we’re incredibly excited about what’s coming next. In the meantime, here’s a look at what we’ve been working on.
Community Playtest V2
Back in December, we put out the call for community playtesters—and the response blew us away. Not just in numbers, but in the quality and depth of the feedback you shared. Your insights helped us zero in on exactly where we could improve our tech, mechanics, UI, and overall gameplay experience.
We were so happy with the results of the first playtest that we’re doing it again. This time, we wanted to bring even more community members into the fold so more voices could help shape the game at this early stage. We’re now in the final stages of recruiting our next round of playtesters and expect them to be up and running in the coming days. We can’t wait to get The Department into more hands.
Under the Hood
Our main focus these past few months has been refining the tech that powers The Department - both our graphical capabilities (more on that shortly) and the underlying systems that make the detective work you will be doing feel authentic.
New systems like the interactive case board, dynamically populated case files, and evidence tracking are now fully implemented. Many of these features are subtle, but together they’ll make your time in Port Hearn more immersive and intuitive. Our ongoing playtests will help us continue to polish these mechanics, but we’re very happy with how they’re shaping up.
Content Buildout
Our Narrative Lead has been hard at work writing and refining our first full case, and we’re now bringing that story to life. That means building environments, crafting crime scenes, assembling evidence chains, and recording suspect interviews. Everything we’ve been prototyping up to now—just on a much larger scale.
We’re not ready to show too much yet, but here’s a small glimpse of the Police HQ where you’ll be working your cases:
Unreal Engine 5.6 Migration
In early March, we made the decision to migrate the project to Unreal Engine 5.6. This upgrade lets us push our visuals even further without compromising performance. It also opens the door to new character model and animation workflows that we’re already experimenting with.
COPA x GDC
In March, some of the team travelled to San Francisco to attend GDC as part of Creative Wales’ annual trade mission. We even brought along a playable version of The Department to showcase.
This was our third time attending, and it was great to see the show bouncing back after a tough few years. Events like GDC are invaluable—they help us get the game in front of international publishers and expand our network across the industry.
What’s Next?
Keep your eyes peeled. We’ll be expanding our playtest as soon as Case 1 is ready for wider feedback. Until then, come hang out with us on Discord and follow along as development continues.