Hey all! Before we go any further, there are real answers in this post and not my standard well tell you more when we can or I promise were still working on this that youve grown to expect. Just give me a moment of preamble first. Simply put, its been a bit and every one is understandably frustrated about the situation. Id say no one is more frustrated than our team, but honestly, weve known whats going on while youve all been in the dark. It was a situation that unfortunately we couldnt help. We are now thankfully finally in a position to let you in on what has been happening to Orphan Age the last couple of years, encompassing most of the post-Kickstarter period. Also, Ill be writing out what I can, but there will also be an FAQ at the bottom of this post and Ill be doing my best to answer any questions I can in this thread. Please note for questions, and across the forums as a whole that any hate speech or threats to myself or the dev team, even in jest, will be met with an immediate ban. We may have been too quiet with you all, but that doesnt give permission to threaten anyone. Diving into it, there were two major factors that led to the massive delay in the timeline and even the shutdown in communication: After our successful Kickstarter campaign, while attending gamescom, our founders Adrien and Maxime had an awakening. The attention garnered by the campaign far surpassed expectations, and with that came sky-high anticipation. Their vision for Orphan Age had to evolve beyond a "simple indie game." This led to expanding our team and securing a larger budget than originally planned. Simultaneously, publishers and potential funders came knocking. This was a wonderful development, but figuring out funding options, building a team, and the lack of comms experience of those already on the project led to the beginning of the communication breakdown with their burgeoning community. Then in the process of finalizing contracts with a publishera great moment for Studio Black Flag because it assured that the studio would have the money to support the creative, inspiring developers they neededthey realized that Orphan Age as it stood wasnt going to live up to the Kickstarter hype, nor was it living up to their own internal expectations. So, for the second time in the projects history they scrapped pretty much everything and went back to the beginning, and so began the biggest reason for the studio not hitting the originally announced plans for a launch date, whether Early Access or full. This of course doesnt explain the lack of notice, because as Im sure you all are asking, OK, so the team sucked at comms stuff, but how hard would it have been to drop a simple we messed up on our timeline and need more time, and also were signing a contract with a publisher to make the game we want and you want? And you know what, yall would be right in asking that, but the complexities of running a studio, building a team, and realizing that they needed to start over took its toll on the team. There was also a belief that well, this overhaul wont take that long, so whats another month, and yeah, one month turned to two and then to a year, and so on. Again, we messed up on comms, and were sorry, truly. Enter my hiring as the community manager this project long needed. Our contracts were fully finalized with a publisheryes, Orphan Age does have a publisherand we could begin putting stuff together to plan the announcements of everything the team needed to tell people. Except, we werent hitting our milestones the way we needed. Our crew wasnt organized how wed have liked and our build process wasnt smooth. Along with our publisher we made a decision to delay our plans for Orphan Age out of 2022 entirely. It was a painful moment, especially for our new hires like myself, BUT we took a few months to overhaul everything at the studio, from structure to tools to how everything was conducted internally. And now, a few months into 2023 I can confirm that our ship has been sailing unhindered for months and hitting every milestone. So, what's next? We're tired of the darkness, tired of the silence. Were unhappy that we left our community and backers feeling betrayed, and we want to do what we can to try to begin earning back yalls trust. Among those initiatives we have the following plans:

• With our publishing agreement, let me first state that it continues to be built on the foundation of support of our vision. While the publisher provides guidance and backing, Orphan Age is still at its core the same game it has been since we announced it.
  • Regarding the publishing agreement itself, we wont be announcing specifics at this time, as we are in agreement with our publisher that it is best for them to make that announcement at what we all agree is the appropriate time.
  • Keeping all of this in mind, after many discussions with the publisher, we all feel it is best that we dont overpromise or sell you, our community, on any aspect of the updated experience until its been tested and proven. In the past weve said too much, but shown too little and we want to fix that dynamic. So, in the short term, we cannot get into much of the specifics of how Orphan Age has changed and evolved, but we will as soon as we feel our work has progressed to an appropriate point.
• We recently conducted our first local external playtests and they went VERY well. Were now putting together the framework to open up our playtesting plans, which if all goes well will allow members of our community and backers to take part in sessions.
• Ive personally been given the all-clear to be more active on social media, Discord, the Steam forums, and elsewhere with studio news, and approved information about Orphan Age. It wont be full openness, but itll be so much better than my I promise you were working on stuff still messages which I know sucked for everyone.
  • In that respect, you can expect more various and tangible content your way in the months to come as Im planning to try to do monthly updates to start. These may be minor updates initially, but were aiming for not just corporate messages, but also behind the scenes, various media, and overall regular interactions on all our channels. its our hope that these will keep you informed and engaged.