Last night we submitted our draft build of Story Mode to a small closed community testing group. Long story short, they uncovered a number of major gameplay issues that need to be addressed before we feel Chapter 1 is ready for release.
We have a plan to get everything up to the standard of quality we’re looking for, but we’re going to need more time to do it. One more month, specifically. So, the launch date for our 1.0 release (and Chapter 1 of Story Mode) is now April 30th.
All the pieces of content we set out to create for Chapter 1 are finished and working. This extra month will be used to tweak numbers, ensure edge cases are handled, and squash bugs. Expect us to ramp up posting of spoiler-free Story Mode snippets on our social media accounts to provide a window into how things are shaping up while we work to bring this chapter to a completed state.
I also wanted to address the question of whether or not the current global situation has been affecting development. The short answer is yes. The same real-life disruptions happening to everyone else in the world are also happening to us. Thankfully, no one in our development team is sick (right now), but many of us are responsible for the care of family members that are at high risk. While not a primary contributor to the reason for our delay, it is certainly, most definitely not helping any.
Thank you all in advance for your understanding. We'll continue providing the latest info up until our new release date.
Aaron Stavely
President, Mane6