Dear Survivors,
Since we first announced the game at Gamescom 2024, we’ve come a long way. And we’re incredibly excited to finally share this milestone with you.
As we open this larger public test, we want to sincerely thank our Core Testers who helped shape the game through our Pre-alpha, Alpha, and Core Group Tests. Your feedback at each stage has given us valuable insight into what’s working, what needs improvement, and where we should focus next.
During our Core Group Test earlier this month, we identified several areas that still need work, but we also saw encouraging signs that the game is moving in the right direction. After addressing a few of the most immediate improvements from that build, we felt ready to welcome more of you into this next phase of testing.
To everyone joining us for the first time—thank you for being here. Your feedback, big or small, will help us shape the game into something better, and we truly value every bit of it.
We also want to be very clear and upfront with you: this is only a Beta build and not the final iteration of God Save Birmingham. You may run into bugs, glitches, and optimization issues, as our focus has been on core gameplay and the overall progression loop.
Here are a few important things to keep in mind:
NO SAVE FEATURE YET
Unfortunately, the progression save feature is not available yet. It’s currently in development and is planned for the next phase of testing. In the meantime, if possible, please leave the game running in the background after pressing “ESC,” which will pause the game.
OPTIMIZATION
We’ve made progress on optimization, but you may still experience frame drops or performance issues during intense action or in busier areas of town. If you run into these problems, we’d really appreciate hearing about them as they’ll help us improve the experience significantly.
COMBAT ANIMATION AND AIMING
This is one of the areas we identified during earlier tests and are actively working to improve. We’ve already made some adjustments since the Core Test, and we’re looking forward to hearing what you think in this build as well.
OVERALL GAME BALANCE
This is another area where your feedback will be especially helpful. During the Core Test, players became hungry and thirsty too quickly, which affected the overall experience. We’ve tweaked those systems a bit, and this round of feedback will help us continue refining the balance.
CONTENT SCOPE
The overall content scope is not final yet. If there are features or content you’d love to see in the future, please share them with us after the playtest. We’d love to hear your ideas.
CO-OP IS COMING
Co-op is not part of this test, but it’s absolutely something we’re working toward. We’re excited to run a co-op test once it’s ready, and we can’t wait to share that experience with you.
CONTROLS AND UI
We have more improvements planned for controls and UI, including hotkeys, keybinding options, categorized inventory tabs, and sorting and filtering features. We’d also love to hear what other quality-of-life improvements are on your wishlist.
IT IS STILL BETA AFTER ALL
This is still a work-in-progress build. We know our first gameplay reveal trailer received criticism for being engine-rendered, but our intention was always to share the vision and ambition we have for the game. The final experience will not be exactly the same, but we want to reassure you that we are fully committed to building toward the quality and direction we’ve shared. More animations, features, and polish are still to come, and we’ll keep working toward that vision with your feedback helping to guide us.
We cannot reiterate enough that your feedback and insight through tests like this truly matter. They help us make better decisions and build a stronger game together.
It’s been over a year since we released the gameplay trailer, and we’re genuinely excited to finally open a beta test without an NDA. This is just the first of other larger playtests to come, including a co-op test and demo.
We can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the game, its vision, and where you’d like to see it go next.
Best Regards,
God Save Birmingham Team
P.S We’ve been showing our development progress via dev logs and development update videos! Please read/watch them below if you are interested in how we’ve been progressing through the months.