[h1][b]Hi all, Matt here![/b][/h1] [h3][b]I have a couple bits of development news! Here’s the short version:[/b][/h3] [olist] [*] 📅 [i][b]Streets of Rogue 2[/b][/i] is moving from its original release date of August 14th to a new release date of [b]October 22nd[/b]. [*] 🎮 We’ll be conducting an [b]Open Playtest[/b] on Steam in the near future, free for anyone to join! [/olist] But wait, a new release date? What’s going on here? What sort of shenanigans are at play? Well, I assure you the answer is a lot less interesting than that. I, uh… [i]couldn’t program quite fast enough[/i]. :p While [i][b]SoR 2[/b][/i] has had a few more folks working on it than its predecessor, I’m still the sole programmer/designer of this thing. Compared with other disciplines, programmers are notoriously bad at predicting how long a given task will take. Now replace “task” with “entire Early Access-ready game,” and as you can probably imagine, guesstimating correctly gets a tad trickier. I’d been targeting a summer launch for a while, which has led to a pretty intense 2024. And while the original release date would have been technically achievable, it would have also been tighter than I was comfortable with. The new date allows me some breathing room and the opportunity to make the game [i]that[/i] much better. The new release date will also give me time to conduct [b]a large-scale Pre-Release Playtest[/b]. If [i][b]Streets of Rogue[/b][/i]’s history tells me anything, this should benefit development. Before the original [i][b]SoR[/b][/i] went into Early Access, I released a bunch of builds of the game for free. This was super useful for getting player feedback and paved the way for a smooth launch on Steam. [b]The ETA for the future Playtest is late August / early September. Stay tuned for more news on that![/b] [h3][b]Go to the game's page and click the "Request Access" button to sign up now:[/b][/h3] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2165810/Streets_of_Rogue_2/][img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43039829/2a597270d160714d0f3f2b29f2edf93dc42c9676.gif[/img][/url] The prospect of releasing a pre-Early Access version of [i][b]SoR 2[/b][/i] has often crossed my mind. But while [i][b]SoR 1[/b][/i]’s simple level-based structure lent itself well to creating nice little vertical slices of gameplay to iterate on, [i][b]SoR 2[/b][/i]’s long-gestating open world and numerous broader-scale systems have taken longer to gel. Even then, there’s still a LOT of malleability in a lot of areas of the game, which is why I’d like to hear your opinions! [b]Thanks for your patience, everyone! Looking forward to getting the game into your hands![/b] [hr][/hr] Join the community: [url=https://discord.gg/streetsofrogue][b]🔗DISCORD[/b][/url] [url=https://www.reddit.com/r/streetsofrogue/][b]🔗REDDIT[/b][/url] Follow [i][b]Streets of Rogue 2[/b][/i] on social media: [url=https://twitter.com/streetsofrogue][b]🔗TWITTER (X)[/b][/url] [url=https://www.tiktok.com/@streetsofrogue][b]🔗TIKTOK[/b][/url]