The brand new shooter from the makers of Bulletstorm is delayed to 2023
On: October 12, 2022
It has been 5 years since Polish studio The Astronauts introduced Witchfire, a darkish fantasy shooter about witches (and worse) in an alt-history medieval world. And it will be some time but earlier than the game sees the sunshine of day, because the studio introduced right now that the discharge deliberate for the top of this yr has been delayed into early 2023.
The delay has been attributable to a significant redesign that is altering the game from arena-style fight to open-world combating. That seems like a fairly main job for a comparatively brief delay to me, however Astronauts co-founder and artistic director Adrian Chmielarz mentioned the brand new characteristic is already “95% applied.”
“It makes the game higher,” Chmielarz mentioned. “It’s sort of arduous for me to think about the participant didn’t have that freedom earlier than. Certain, you may nonetheless be trapped by the witch on this or that spot, and a few doorways shall be closed till you discover a key, and it is perhaps too harmful to enter areas nearer to the boss earlier than you might be prepared–however the world is huge open so that you can discover in virtually any order, and you may each push ahead and retreat as you please.”
Chmielarz went into better element on the delay in a weblog submit through which he mentioned the core expertise of Witchfire stays the identical, “however the best way the participant experiences the world has modified considerably.” Within the unique design, gamers would “enter an space, struggle some monsters, after which have a selection: take this reward and go left, or take that reward and go right.” Below the brand new system, nevertheless, limitations separating totally different areas of the game have been eliminated, enabling gamers (with some limitations—Chmielarz described Witchfire now as a “semi-open world”) to journey where they like, after they like.
Naturally, taking out these limitations had all types of spillover impact on different elements of the game, together with enemy behaviors, spawns, rewards, and learn how to maintain gamers from breaking the game by doing unpredictable issues. However Chmielarz mentioned, presumably with some irony, that the change “made this fantasy game extra… real looking.”
I have been desperate to get my palms on Witchfire just about from the second it was introduced. The Astronauts was based in 2012 by Chmielarz, Michał Kosieradzki, and Andrzej Poznański, additionally the founders of Folks Can Fly, the developer of Painkiller and Bulletstorm. Bulletstorm is a blast however Painkiller is superb, considered one of my favourite shooters of all time, and whereas I used to be blissful for all concerned that that they had such success with The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, I am truthfully excited to see the crew getting again to its unique love of supernatural gunfire.
Chmielarz additionally addressed questions on Witchfire’s launch plan, saying it would debut in early entry as an Epic Video games Retailer unique however go to different storefronts at full launch.
“Epic is okay, Epic Game Retailer is okay, we like our cooperation. However the selection of where to purchase Witchfire is yours,” he wrote. “If you wish to assist us and play the Early Entry model, it’s coming to EGS quickly. In case you desire Steam or perhaps you don’t even play on PC and need a console model, simply please wait a little bit longer, till the game is completed. So simple as this.”
