Hey all, hope you're all doing well.
I wanted to do a follow-up post following the huge surprise announcement of The Walking Trade 2 earlier this week. The response has been huge and completely blew me and the new team away. There's only so much I could cram into a 1:30 long trailer at this point in development so I'd like to talk about the direction of the game, how closely I'd like to stick to the original where possible and other frequently asked questions.
Is The Walking Trade 1 now abandoned?
Absolutely not. Nothing is changing in terms of the dedicated regular updates for the first one. The roadmap is still on track. I have invested in the series and expanded the team for the second game meaning development can continue on both. Just to be clear, The Walking Trade was never intended to be a live service, endlessly updated game, and financially its not possible anyway. I can dig into that on another post if people are interested on the reality of running an indie game company, but the game is getting the attention it deserves. I am currently working on a Cleaner overhaul to give them way more flexibility and stop them from getting stuck.
Ultimately I wish I'd made this clearer in the initial announcement but I was just so excited to share the game itself.
Will the game be fully playable solo?
Yes, 1000%. One of the biggest design pillars for the sequel that we are trying to stick to is allowing players to play the game just like the first one as much as possible. Staff members will be returning including service, scavengers, security and cleaners workers. You'll be able to send staff members to complete quests within the world too so if you literally never wish to leave the store you will not have to. To achieve this you will need gear up your staff members relative to the goal you want them to achieve, similar to the first game. Alternatively, if you love the idea of exploring the world, you can tell your staff members to fully run the shop while you are out on expeditions. The plan is to allow staff members to physically go out into the world themselves when you assign jobs, so you could actually join them on scavenger missions or world raids.
If I own The Walking Trade 1 will I get a discount for The Walking Trade 2?
Yes. We will be offering a Steam bundle including both games meaning that owners of The Walking Trade will automatically get a discount on the second game.
When is The Walking Trade 2 launching and on what platforms?
We are currently aiming for a late 2027 launch for the game on Steam. A self-funded and self-published game this ambitious will take a lot of effort but with the additional team members this feels doable with the current state of the game. Console ports are entirely dependent on the success of the Steam launch.
How can I stay up to date with The Walking Trade 2 news?
There are a tons of ways of keeping up to the date with The Walking Trade 2's development and news.
Most importantly, wishlist the game from the sequel's store page to make sure you do not miss out when the game launches. We're already up to 5K wishlists in just a couple of days which is insane. For context, it took The Walking Trade 1 over a year to reach half of that!
Secondly, join the community discord where the team is most active: https://discord.gg/BBKeY9TfvX Here you can discuss all things The Walking Trade 1, suggest ideas for the sequel and just learn more about both games in general. Super nice group of people in there.
Stay tuned on both games' Steam discussions and news. Anything that relates to the first game I'll also post on the first game's store page (like this post). Sequel-exclusive news will only be posted on to this store page.
Happy to answer any other questions you guys have!
Thanks again,
Adam ❤️
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