Greetings, operatives!
Development of "Untrusted: Hackers at Large" is going well and it is likely that the release date will be Q1 or Q2 2026. Wohoo! We have a - tentative - date!
So, without spoilers, how are things going? Lets take a brief look at what's been cooking.
Campaign and game content
The game internal build is, more or less, playable from start to finish. All chapters have been written, although content is still being worked on regularly (balancing, new quests, etc) and while it is not final - not at all - it feels good to have most of the building blocks in place.
Assets (comics from the very talented Gustavo are still coming in, so are the Icons from Sketch studio, as well as other additional UI components), but most of them have been completed.
Likewise, the OST is almost completed (and I'm in awe of the musicians who have made this original sound track). If "Untrusted: Hackers at Large" is even half as good as its OST, I'll be happy!
On track with the development, I'm planning to start an internal test to further check that the game is fun, while still providing a good challenge! A busy autumn is coming!
User experience improvements
The feedback from the steam demo (and the updated version shown at NG25) has been invaluable.
The most requested feature? Disabling the CRT effect :( (which is now an in-game option)
However, many more UI improvements have been implemented. Visual cues, interaction improvements (e.g. click a word to copy to clipboard,), improved user interfaces (eg. with a button to automatically fill the login screen) etc. are too many to list, but many of these came directly from you: thank you!
Some are subtle, some are more "in your face" but I'm sure more people will find the user experience a lot better. I can't really get away with a development update without at least a teaser screenshot, so here's one, albeit it doesn't really show much, does it? :)
Localization
Localization still hasn't been completed, in fact, it's the less complete part. This unfortunately requires the game content (quest, events, dialogue) to be completed first. Which is why the Steam demo hasn't been updated in ages: the NG25 demo in fact, was English only. Localization is indeed still planned though!
New Demo on Steam: when?
Tentatively, the updated demo on Steam will be up before the end of 2025, depending on when the localization is completed. Make sure to join the discord to be notified!
Untrusted @ Nordic Game conference!
As mentioned above, in May I had the pleasure to introduce the world of Untrusted to a new audience, at the Nordic Game conference 2025 in Malmö, Sweden.
Lots of new faces had the chance to try the latest demo build, which provided me with a lot of extremely useful feedback (with the added bonus of also getting few new players for the original Untrusted :) )
Here's a photo of the untrusted booth!
Why this short update? You haven't shown anything!
I tried to do some video devlogs during the development (you can find them here if you haven't seen them and you're curious: Devlog 0, Devlog 1, Devlog 2) but I'm really slow (and not very good) at making them. Given the - little - time I have, I'm concentrating on making the actual game.
As much as I'd loved to make another devlog video, that would have set me back by another month at the very least, I'm really gaining speed in development, and I want Hackers at Large to be as polished as I can for release.
I'll try to make more of these short development logs here to at least keep you more in the loop!
That's it for this devlog!
* logs off abruptly *