Hey Rangers!
Long time no see, it's been a fair few months since we've had a development update for you, so how about we get into what's been happening behind the scenes...?
Chapter 1 Overhaul - Progress Update
We've been really, REALLY hard at work on the Chapter 1 Overhaul and it's turning out amazingly! We've been spending lots of time making our own assets, re-coding gameplay mechanics as well as implementing new ones, and the sound design is also in the process of being redone from the ground up too!
Admittedly though, we've still got a long, LONG way to go until it's release. There's been so much love and passion put into this game, and the further we go along with development, the more passion we put in. Everyday we strive to make this game perfect, and the feedback you all have provided us has been so, so helpful, so thank you all! And a huge thank you for your patience!! We're going to make this the best it can be, and we're all so excited for you to see what's in store!
Some things I'll say publicly about the Chapter 1 Overhaul is the game's visual style is WAY different, and honestly, I think it's so much more beautiful and pleasing to look at. Our biggest hurdle has been the fact that we're handcrafting all of our assets instead of resorting to asset packs from the Unreal Marketplace, but my god has it been beyond worth it! I won't be showing anything here just yet, but I promise you all things are coming together really well!
Chapter 2 - Progress Update
Lonely Ruins admittedly hasn't been our main focus when it comes to development, we're really wanting to get the Chapter 1 Overhaul out first so that we can have a better groundwork to build from, but I can still give you all a bit of an update regardless!
With Chapter 2, there's a LOT of new characters, new scenarios, new areas to explore, and it's going to be HUGE... but that, of course, requires a lot of planning on our behalf. So that's what we've been doing! A lot of our time with this chapter has been spent laying it all out on paper, we've had a good idea in mind for how the chapter is going to go but getting it properly laid out is going to help us tremendously (the public version of Chapter 1 had little to no planning prior to beginning development), and so we're making sure the layout for the chapter is as good as possible before starting with proper development! (That and getting the Chapter 1 Overhaul done as well!)
We're genuinely so pumped to get started with Chapter 2 after we release the overhaul, we're finally going to be entering new territory and that's so exciting to us, and we hope it's exciting to you all too! You'll be getting more information on Chapter 2 closer to the overhaul's release, so we'll talk then!
Plans Going Forward
So, with all of this said and done, what's next? Well, I would really like to do more development updates like this and the last one in future, so that's going to be happening every few months or so! As for our release schedule for Bushside, I believe our plans are as follows:
Q1 2026 - Chapter 1 Overhaul Release
Q2 2026 - Begin Production on Chapter 2
2026 to 2027 - Chapter 2 Release
And from there, we'll be figuring out what'll happen after Chapter 2 releases!
Thank you all so, so much for joining us on this journey, and thank you for reading till this point! We're incredibly thankful for all the support we've gotten, and for all the feedback we've been given! Bushside Rangers is genuinely a huge passion project for all of us, and we're so incredibly optimistic about seeing this game to completion! And so with that being said, until next time! :)