Hey all,
After finishing my sixth full playthrough of the game over the past month—with only a handful of bugs each time—I’m feeling really confident about where things are at.
With that in mind, the game's launch is currently targeted for mid-July. I’m still watching what else might be releasing around that time, so I’ll have more specific details on the exact date soon.
The demo will be releasing later this month.
Early Access is still the plan, but I don’t expect the game to remain there for more than 4–6 months before the full release. Since I haven't posted since February, I wanted to share a quick update on the current state of the game and what’s planned for the Early Access period.
Current Game State
As I mentioned, I’ve done several full playthroughs at this point, and the number of bugs has gone down each time. On my last run, there were only a couple of very minor issues—a single combat lockup and some logic I had to fix on a couple side quests—but otherwise everything played smoothly.
With two months to go before full launch, I’d estimate the game is about 97% complete. All quests are written, coded, and tested—including the main storyline. Major story choices are fully implemented, and the planets are populated and working as intended.
That said, there are a few areas I’d love to improve with community feedback during Early Access:
- Combat – Combat is in good shape, but I’ll admit it’s never been my strongest area. Even in my past strategy games like Age of Gladiators and Raiders! Forsaken Earth, as someone coming from a writing background, it was always the management and storytelling aspects that grabbed me more. That said, Sector Unknown features a solid system with unique weapon-based abilities, special named weapons with their own effects, elemental damage, combat skill progression, and a deep perks system. I think it can get even better with input from players, and I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
- Space Combat – There are a number of scripted space events that can lead to combat, and those have been a lot of fun to play through. That said, I think there’s still room to improve. I’d like to add more piloting skills and abilities that can be used during space battles to give it an extra layer of depth. I’m not sure yet if those additions will make it in before launch—it depends on how much I can get done in the next month and a half. I also need to finally crawl out of my development cave and spend some time promoting the game. So we’ll see if those features come in before or after release. Either way, I’m excited to get feedback from players—I know there are some smart minds out there who can help make this even better.
- Localization – At the moment, the game is only available in English. The amount of dialogue is massive, probably the equivalent of five or six full novels—so localization would be a significant expense. It’s a bit of a catch-22: launching in multiple languages would definitely help the game perform better, but I just don’t have the budget for it right now. I’m also hesitant to rely on AI for localization, since I want to make sure the writing is done justice. We’ll see how the game performs at launch, and if things go well, I plan to start rolling out proper localizations after that.
So with that being said, here's my project road map after Early Access Launch:
Early Access Roadmap
- Bug Fixes – As stable as the game feels right now, my experience tells me that players have an uncanny ability to break things in ways I never anticipated. I expect the first 30–60 days post-launch will be focused on responding to bugs and addressing them carefully, without introducing new issues. Timeline: Days 1–60
- Armor & Clothing Sets – Assuming some revenue starts coming in from Steam, I’ll begin expanding the available armor and clothing sets around the 30-day mark. This work can run alongside bug fixing and feedback updates. My goal is to add at least 10–15 new sets to give players more visual variety. Timeline: Starts Day 30, runs concurrently with the above
- Localization - Same as with the armour sets, I will need revenue first before I can start localizing the game. The languages I would like to incrementally aim for are: German, French, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Polish, and Spanish. I still have to determine the exact order, but I think the above is close. Timeline: Starts Day 30, runs concurrently with the above
- Combat Optimization – As mentioned above, once the major bugs are addressed, my next priority will be gathering player feedback and making targeted improvements to the combat systems, both ground and space. I don’t anticipate any major overhauls; the core mechanics are solid. This phase will mostly involve balance tweaks and additional features based on community input. Timeline: Days 60–120
There are also a few smaller improvements not listed above such as enhancing the lava system on Helfyr and adding more idle animations for NPCs—but the major points above should give you a solid idea of what I’m aiming to tackle during Early Access.
Thanks again for your continued interest and support. I’ll be sure to keep you all updated as things progress!