It's launch day detectives! Today marks our official transition out of early access and into, 1.0. I'm immensely pleased with what the team has put together over the last 8 years (!) Or so. You can view our 1.0 changelog here, which arrives as by far our biggest one yet. We can now also welcome console players to the fray on Xbox and PS5.
What does this mean practically? We've finished making the content we wanted to include in the final game. I'm very pleased with the amount of content we've been able to include, and this release version features the latest additions of kidnapping cases, cover-up side missions and even a much-requested umbrella to keep your busy heads dry in the rain. It's not the 'end' of the project though, we will continue patching and polishing, just as we have done in the past with the 30+ patches throughout early access. It's such a massive project for any team, let alone a small one, so we'll continue working hard behind the scenes to sort out any issues we didn't manage to solve before launch. To aid this, as well as improve the communication on the status of issues, we're also launching a new bug report system.
We're also putting out a standalone Soundtrack, so if you want to listen to the awesome music Monomoon has created outside the game, you can. In addition to that we're also releasing an 80-page digital Art Book written by myself and Miles (the voxel artist on the project). This features both a look back through the development history of the game (featuring my various blog posts but with new commentary added from the present), as well as a detailed look at the process Miles used to create a lot of the awesome voxel props you see in the game.
In the future, you can still expect small bits of content to arrive in patches, as we just love adding details. A couple of things we have in mind are new pre-made cities, some more in-game assets (eg. more cruncher apps), and we’re also looking at putting in support for Steam Workshop. We're not going to have a roadmap for these, as we're going to be employing a 'when it's done' approach; our main priority will be on solving any remaining issues reported.
Thank you so much to all the detectives who took on the investigation throughout Early Access. Your feedback has been so important to the development of the game, and we're so excited for you to check out the 1.0 version today along with new players joining the case. I hope you enjoy the world we've created!
Be sure to join the investigation over on Discord and follow @detectivesim for the latest in Shadows Of Doubt news!