Hello everyone,
today we want to talk about an addition to our Early Access roadmap. According to our original roadmap, the next major milestone would have been the French Update, followed by the End of War Update (1.0) planned for next year.
We have decided to change this structure. Instead of focusing on one final large content update (~5-6 month of development) before release, we will move toward a series of smaller and medium-sized updates (~1-3 month of development) over the coming months. This means that the French Update will be replaced by a broader development phase called Road to End of War. All of the planned features for the French Update will be split up and included either in this phase or in the final 1.0 version.
The Road to End of War phase is planned to further include an enhancement of the battle map, creation of new levels, improvement of existing systems and polishing of mechanics that we feel deserve further attention (e.g. battle mechanics), as well as a focus on balancing. There is also the possibility that we will unlock the later stages of the war earlier than originally planned.
There are many reasons why we are switching to this approach, but here are the most important ones. It allows us to:
prioritise important issues and ideas more flexibly, instead of being locked into one large thematic update for too long
react to community feedback faster
polish individual systems more thoroughly
better distribute and balance late-war content
Going forward we will no longer announce exact release dates for updates in advance. Once a feature is complete, it will be released as soon as possible. But if we feel additional testing and feedback is needed, the updates could go through longer beta testing periods before their official release. This should help us make larger gameplay changes more stable and better balanced before they become part of the main game.
We hope you're just as excited as we are.
Your Totally Not Aliens Team!