Welcome Starchasers! Happy New Year, hopefully things work out for you, those New Year Resolutions get resolved, you work off that eggnog hangover, etc, etc. I’d waste your time with this preamble, but you and both know you’re here for the real meat of this yearly recap so let’s get into it!
[h1]Where We’ve Gone[/h1]
2024 was a huge year for Underspace. Mostly because, you know, it was actually our first official release, albeit in Early Access. We saw a huge boost in sales, engagement, community growth, and all those metrics that washed-up bald actors on social media sites talk about instead things like if they’re proud of the actual thing they made. We even got printed articles about the game, which is neat.
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Following that big ole release and all the celebration and communal good vibes and cake, things moved onto to post EA-Launch support. We’ve had about 37 patches since the game first launched, featuring across the board improvements to optimization, gameplay, controller support (though why you want to use that I’ll still never figure out), and more, as well as tons of new features often submitted or based on feedback from you in the community.
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2024 also saw the release of both our roadmap and the release of two of our planned Early Access roadmap updates. The first, [b]Gods & Corpses[/b], brought the undead world of Gravecity, alongside with a huge host of improvements to many late game bosses, new weapons, and more.
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The second milestone update, [b]Faces in the Fog[/b], was our biggest update yet, and brought in a huge amount of new quests, full storylines for party members, a bounty hunting system, and a ton more things that I’m probably forgetting because I ran myself ragged getting that thing out in the first place.
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Past that, we’ve had a few smaller updates and new goodies that have filtered in as this year chugs to a close, including full cockpits, summonable weapon platforms, and more.
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But that’s just what’s been done. You’re here to know what’s going and what’s going to happen next.
[h1]Where We’re Going[/h1]
As you may have noticed from the roadmap there was a bit of a schedule slip. After the launch of Faces in the Fog I realized that I was nearly destroying myself and falling apart at the bolts. I’m old now, my back hurts. I have things and living creatures that require that I still exist and breathe, so the name of the game for the later milestone updates was to take it slower.
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Because, for one thing, they’re also massive MASSIVE updates. Wanna get into them? Yeah? Cool, glad we’re on the same page.
First off is Milestone #3, [b]Intergalactic Architecture.[/b] This is one of the largest level updates to the entire game. Milestone #1’s centerpiece was a single planet. Milestone #3 aims to add around fifteen of those.
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Being focused on planet and stationside content, it also will add new features such as whole shopping districts in major locations, increased character customization, tons of new dialogue and news stories on stations, and player housing with full interior decorating.
Intergalactic Architecture will also see the first new flyable ships added to the game (something players requested), this includes the new lines of Corporate and Washer Missionary fighters (with appropriate bonuses), but also unique ships such as the Champion’s racing scout and the Rival’s strange otherworldly craft.
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We’ll be aiming to drop this update [b]early 2025.[/b]
Our final milestone update, and the one that’ll mark the release of the game is Milestone #4: [b]The Soulchaser Endeavor[/b]. This of course, brings forth probably the game’s most anticipated and requested feature: online multiplayer.
Of course what’s multiplayer without something to do in it? Not very good multiplayer, I’d say. The Soulchaser Endeavor features its own unique main quest, which serves as a separate story set after the events of the singleplayer main quest. This questline is centered around multiplayer activities, and features a lot of dungeon delving, worm avoiding, and boss crushing.
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But fear not, for in multiplayer you’re not just one middle aged Vauldwin merchant out to reclaim his fortune, as you’re able to pick from multiple different races with full character customization for all of them.
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If you have an internet connection/no friends/social anxiety, don’t worry. This last update also includes an offline version of multiplayer, which we call Freeplay. This lets you do the same amount of race customization, pursuing that questline, but is less multiplayery.
We’re aiming to drop this [b]mid 2025[/b], but an important thing to note is that a lot of this final update will be spent in beta testing, which means depending on how spectacularly broken it is things could take some time. We want to launch multiplayer in a state where things work, you know?
And between all these there’s also a smattering of other things, like increased mod support, pets, performance improvements, voice acting, and so on. No screenshots for these, so have some cats.
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And that’s all for this recap! We’ll be aiming for a smaller patch this month to address various issues, plus add some new little goodies here and there.
