What? Done? The end of Liftoff? If we ever came close to having a clickbait title, this one might be it. Nonetheless, its not wrong to say Liftoff is almost finished. What does that mean exactly? For the last three years, Liftoff has continued to be in an Early Access state: everything in the game was considered work-in-progress and the game was not yet feature complete. During that time we have released close to 100 updates, continuing to improve and expand Liftoff in all kinds of ways. Its time for Liftoff to mature and join the realm of finished games. In a little while well be entering this new phase, but not quite yet

THE END OF DEVELOPMENT?

Far from it! We have plans for years of Liftoff development and we consider the end of the Early Access program as a start of a new stage in the life of Liftoff. We are big fans of Blizzard and Valve and how they support their games years after theyve been released as a full product. Well continue to improve Liftoff for as long as theres a community that supports it. Accordingly, we consider this just the start of a new phase for Liftoff. We are proud of what we have achieved over the last three years and we now feel confident to begin showing and promoting Liftoff to a bigger audience.

WHEN IS THE V1 RELEASE?

We are getting closer to what in development terms is called a beta version: a version thats feature complete. Theres still a few things on our list before we reach that stage. Things yet to expect are replay functionality, bots for all tracks and our progression and reward system. Next well be entering a polishing phase: well focus on quality of life improvements, but well also do some feature reworks such as the tutorial and the track builder. Since theres still a lot to do, we cant say for sure when the Version1 (V1) release will happen exactly. Theres still some updates planned in between, including a few milestone updates. Internally we do have a specific time in mind that well be aiming for, but we expect that time will shift as development continues. Consequently, we are not yet ready to share an official release date.

WHAT CHANGES AFTER V1?

Reaching a V1 state wont change all that much for our fans: it will still be the good old Liftoff, that will still receive updates on a regular basis. Liftoff will continue to grow and expand. The time between updates might increase a bit since well likely increase the testing time for these updates to guarantee more stable and polished states of the game. This evolution of the project does allow us to explore project goals we never looked at before. It allows us to look for whats next for Liftoff as a game and as a brand. To continue to support these future goals we might also explore some DLC or expansion packs, but nothing is set in stone on that front. All in all, after three years of hard work, its time for Liftoff to mature. Having a game in an official V1 state allows us to promote Liftoff to a bigger audience, and expose it to more people. We will be inviting press from both the FPV and the gaming world to experience Liftoff. We expect the community to continue to grow and are super excited about the future!

[ 2018-05-05 14:57:05 CET ] [ Original post ]