Hello, Merchants!
We come to you today with very exciting news! We have finally reached a point where we feel the UI Overhaul patch is ready to move out of beta, into Early Access!
Before we get into it, we recommend that even if you don’t read this whole post, you read the sections below for both new or returning players!
Now then! For those unaware, this is a massive patch nearly two years in the making. With that, the first thing we want to do is…well…say we are sorry!
This patch was always going to be a massive undertaking for us, as we were not just overhauling the visuals and gameplay of the entire game, but while we were under the hood, we were doing massive system changes to build a stronger foundation for the future of the game.
However, as we really got into the deep inner workings, the patch ended up taking much longer to get here than we thought. With five jobs between the three of us outside of developing this game, it was a tough balancing act for us, and we assure you we did the best we could. It is certainly not an excuse, but we are sincerely sorry for the long wait, and just wanted to assure you it wasn’t due to lack of effort!
With that said, the game is in the best state it has ever been in, and is a substantially better experience for both new players and veterans alike!
We’ve made a small launch trailer for the overhaul with just a few things you can expect, but if we went into the details of what has changed, it would be far too much to discuss here, so it’s something we recommend you just dive in and see how it feels!
Here is the short launch trailer:
With that all out of the way, we have a short message specifically for both new and returning players!
For the returning players:
Take your time and go through the new, fully narrated video logbook! There are a lot of things in different places, new ways to do things, some things are removed and some new things added, etc., So we recommend you go into a new playthrough with as fresh a set of eyes as you can to really take in all the changes gradually.
For the new players:
We wanted to get this patch out the moment it was ready, as we have kept our playerbase waiting long enough. We wanted to accompany this launch with a sale as well, but unfortunately the soonest we are able to get the sale going is on June 1st at 10:00am PST. So if you are wanting to purchase the game as a brand new player, wait for that sale! It will be a 50% discount and last for a week. We would have loved to have all of this coincide, but we didn’t want to make anyone wait even a day longer than we had to!
One final note. While this patch has made some massive progress toward our final vision for v1.0, we have a couple more major features planned for launch, as well as the intention to continually improve the overall balance and performance of the game. And keep in mind, this is still an early access phase of the game, and there will almost certainly still be bugs and issues that we can improve upon, but rest assured, we will!
Thank you all so much for your patience while we were working to get here, and we look forward to hearing your feedback and thoughts on this new version of The Merchant’s Guide to the Kingdom.
-Devs