CrossCode
2 Years Early Access + Release Schedule Update
Woah,
has it really been 2 years already? Indeed: CrossCode started Early
Access back in May 2015.
Now
before some of you might be tempted to take the offer we thought it
would be fair to talk about the ever-so-important question:
When is CrossCode finally finished?
Back in 2016 we posted our release schedule[www.radicalfishgames.com] and at that time, we estimated the final release for June-September 2017. We're now very close at this date and unfortunately see that there is still too much left to do.
Yes, most major locations and dungeons have been finished and you can
already gather all 4 elements. The only major thing that is now missing
is the story. And story is difficult. It's important to us that
the plot will leave enough space for character development, will be able
to surprise you and most important of all: will have a satisfying
conclusion. All of this unfortunately takes time, more than we
estimated.
The only way we could release on time would be by cutting content, making the game shorter than intended. This will of course leave the final product lacking and we really want to avoid this.
The good news is: financially we can afford to develop the game until it reaches the intended conclusion.
That of course means we have to postpone the release. We fully
understand that some of you might be angry about that. But we also
believe that, in the end, nobody wins when we release an incomplete game
on time. We owe it to you to give this game a satisfying conclusion and
we believe this is what most of you want us to do as well.
With all that being said, we now target a release of CrossCode in Early 2018.
Yes, this is big step, but this should give us enough time to finish
the story and make sure it reaches a satisfying conclusion. It will
hopefully be the last time we have to postpone the release to such an
extend.
Since it will be another half a year, we plan to add a few more releases in-between with more content to play.
New Release Schedule
CrossCode 0.9.5
Release Date: June 2017
This update will finally
extend the story! By quite a bit as well. It will slightly expand
locations around Maroon Valley, Rookie Harbor and Autumn's Fall, include
several smaller boss battles and plenty of interesting plot
developments. It may also be leaving you wanting more story, so be
warned.
Includes:
- More Story
- More Quests
CrossCode 0.9.7
Release Date: Autumn 2017
This release will add the new area Sapphire Ridge with new enemies and puzzles included. You may recognize the area from another part of the game you've already played.
We'll also finally work on all those backer perks we promised back during our Indiegogo campaign.
Includes:
- New Area: Sapphire Ridge
- More Quests
- First Backer Food / NPCs / Quests / Enemies
CrossCode 0.9.9
Release Date: End of 2017
This release will implement the new level 3 combat arts so you can try those out and give us feedback for balancing!
You
will also, for the first time, be able to enter Rhombus Square. You
might only be able to enter certain parts of the city in the beginning,
but we intend to expand the place over time, even beyond the 1.0
release.
Includes:
- Level 3 Combat Arts
- New City: Rhombus Square
- More Quests
- More Backer Food / NPCs / Quest / Enemies
CrossCode 1.0
Release Date: Early 2018
This will be the big release of the full version! It will include a (hopefully) satisfying conclusion to the story.
Includes:
- Full Story
- Complete Skill Tree
- Indiegogo Backer Food / NPCs / Quest / Enemies (maybe not complete)
- More Quests
Note
that versions 0.9.7 and 0.9.9 will have less content compared to
previous releases. That's because a lot of content for the final version
will be developed in parallel to those versions but only released with
the full game.
Post Release Content
Of course we
still plan to develop the game beyond it's final release adding more
post-game content and remaining backer perks we didn't manage to
implement on time.
This includes:
- New Game+
- All remaining Indiegogo Backer Content
- A Battle Arena in Rhombus Square with a lot of different challenges
- More Quests
And
this is our new schedule! Again we're very sorry we have to postpone
the release once again, but we really hope that all the wait will be
worth it in the end!
Localization
Two weeks ago, we released the Chinese Localization with help of our partner WhisperGames.
We are now also happy to announce that we're working on a Japanese Localization with our new partner Dangen Entertainment[dangenentertainment.com] to be released sometime during Early Access, possibly with version 0.9.7.
Now
many of you asked for translation into other languages, be it Russian,
Spanish, French etc. We're still in the process of looking for potential
partners for some of these languages, but if nothing comes up, we do
plan to involve the community to help up translate CrossCode to other languages. However, we plan to start those community translations
later once we're closer to the version 1.0. This is mostly because
working with more people to translate the game early on may further
distract us from developing the game itself and we really don't want to
keep postponing the release!
Back from BitSummit
We're back from BitSummit in Kyoto, Japan and man... what an event.
We met a lot of other cool developers including Konjak[www.konjak.org] (Iconoclast), Bomb Service[bombservice.com] (Momodora), Kayin[kayin.moe] (Brave Earth: Prologue), and Stellar Jockeys[stellarjockeys.com] (Brigador) among many others!
Our CrossCode booth got a lot of visitors by all kind of folks... and also the press!
And now you we nice articles by IGN Japan and IGN USA! There was also a Famitsu articles that disappeared... but maybe it'll show up again!
Traveling
all the way to Japan was quite exhausting and so was standing at the
booth all day long, but overall it was definitely worth it and we'd
gladly do it again next year!
We also want to say thanks to Dangen
Entertainment for organizing a great deal of the whole thing and taking
good care of us in general!
See you at Dokomi!
This Saturday and Sunday we'll be at Dokomi in Düsseldorf, Germany presenting CrossCode! You'll find us in Hall 4, Booth L12! If you're there, feel free to drop by, say "Hi!" and get a sticker!
And that's all folks. Until then!
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