We’re happy to announce that after almost 2 years of Alpha development, our team has successfully pushed the first BETA marked build of Take On Mars to Steam. While this suggests that we’re closing in for the final release of the game later this year, there is still a lot to be done and polished: including additional features we’re considering for further development.
In that aspect, we see the first BETA release as an important milestone that sets the basic boundaries for the game – meaning that from the gameplay perspective, no radical changes (such as the additional multiplayer mode or the manned missions were in the past) should happen in future.
From a player perspective, the main task of this BETA release is mainly to provide a set of stabilizing fixes: for example the texture crash bug that was causing a lot of pain recently, as well as several other crashes, should now be resolved.
Looking ahead, we will keep adding content until we reach a feature complete BETA, and we will also be looking at some refinements to the content that already is in the game. The first iteration of these refining efforts can already be seen in this build, where we’ve reworked most of the user interface, including the one in our in-game editor.
Announced earlier, we will of course keep working on the redesign of building blocks (there are still several tasks that need to be done) and with some additional help from our fellow game designers at Bohemia Interactive, we will also think about possible tweaks regarding the overall experience players have with Take On Mars.
With the first BETA release, we’re also changing the price of Take On Mars a little bit – from now on, new players will be able to buy our Early Access BETA starting at 21,99$/19,99€/15,99£, while of course nothing changes for those of you who already own the game.