Soulash 2 Early Access will begin December 4, 2023 on Steam and Itch and is planned for at least a year of active development.
The game will have a base price of $17.99, with regional pricing suggested by Steam. There will be a 10% launch discount, and Soulash 2 will be released alongside a Soulash Series Bundle that will provide an additional 15% discount to owners of the first game. I plan to increase the base price every 6 months of active development.
Many players asked what's the difference between the demo and the EA, so here's a list of key differences as of today:
- 4 tiers of special location difficulty. The demo has 33 small, easy locations. The Early Access begins with over 100 different procedural locations of varying sizes and difficulty.
- All 14 skills with 50 maximum potential levels instead of 20. Additional skills will be implemented during the EA period.
- Medium and Big world sizes for longer adventures.
- History progression before starting a new game, which will expand some settlements up to tier 3 and unlock more buildings and related NPCs to interact with.
Modding tools and Steam Workshop will come a few weeks after the EA release, as I want to give it a proper spotlight this time.
The EA roadmap will be released in January, so I have time to gather your suggestions and have a chance to adjust my plans to include some of the things you'll want to see in the game.
The game will be updated weekly, with possible hotfixes in between, and major milestone updates once every 3 months. The four key milestones I want to hit during Early Access (in order):
- Party mechanics, adventuring with NPCs.
- Settlement Management, inviting NPCs to our settlements.
- Armies and Conquest mechanics, taking over other NPC settlements, tier 5 special locations for big battles.
- Continuation of the story from the first game as part of the history simulation process, worldwide events.
This is the scope of the 1.0 release, which is my core vision for this game. As I mentioned, a more detailed roadmap will come in January. The primary purpose of this Early Access is for me to hear your suggestions and include the best ones in the game. If you like contributing and shaping games you play, this will be the best stage to join in.
I'm very excited to begin this next chapter with you all. It's been a long grind since I've decided to make the sequel, and I wish you all a lot of joy playing with it in the years to come. As always, I'm available to discuss the game on Discord alongside more than 1,200 of our fans, so join us there, and let's have some fun together!
Artur