Early Access Launch October 1, 2026
Hi all,
We’re moving the Early Access launch to October 1st, 2026.
As part of this, we’re going into Early Access with Module 1: Descent into the Deep as part of the launch content. This means that players will be able to start in one of four starting locations (rather than two), and Deep Elves and Deep Gnomes will be playable at launch. This content will become available as part of our ongoing Beta.
The Early Access starting locations will be:
Night Harbor
The Underdocks: Night Harbor’s seedy harbor district in the Deep
Faelindral: Home of the Wood Elves
Ail’vorith: Capital of the Deep Elves
Why the delay?
This decision isn’t something we’ve taken lightly. We realize that this will be a major disappointment to many of you. To others, the decision is obvious and needed.
It was a tough call for us to bring to the team. We’re still a team of volunteers, and each month that passes has a personal cost. But we’ve discussed it and all agree that the push to October is for the best.
We hear a ton of feedback that people are ready to start playing the game as-is, and we’re excited to get you on your “real” characters as soon as possible. The plan has always been to continue working on the game during EA, but we’ve got some more work to do before then. And we feel that it’ll make a big difference in the overall experience.
In December, we described the work we wanted to get done prior to EA in the Beta & Early Access Update. The work was started, but it was slower than we’d hoped, and we weren’t happy with our progress.
Over the last couple of months, the people we added to the team late last year/early this year have had a chance to ramp up.
We’ve added 20 people in various roles since this time last year, with half of that being this year. This includes new people in audio, animation, environment art, game design (content & systems), 6 GMs, 2 additional QA, tech, VFX, etc., and that’s taken some focus and onboarding.
We’ve also moved a couple of people around. Some are assisting in new roles and others have been unblocked/given more leeway to act. Since then, the progress has been very encouraging and the team has been more engaged than ever.
We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us in the next 5 months, but it’s feeling very positive.
Again, the game will still be “in progress” when we enter Early Access, but the additional time will provide you with a better experience at launch.
What are we focusing on?
Class Designs
Class work has been a major focus in recent weeks, but it’s definitely not our only focus.
We presented the initial documentation for all of the classes to the team last week. The reception has been overwhelmingly positive. Naturally, there were some notes, ideas, and questions. We’ve been addressing those while beginning to develop examples of abilities and other details that should help clarify the changes to the community. Once those are ready, we’ll present the revisions to all of you. Those will be available soon.
Then we’ll want time to factor in your feedback, while starting down the path of getting the changes in and tested. It didn’t make sense to push all of that, and the related work—such as content changes—into Early Access.
Itemization
Large-scale changes to itemization have been occurring and we’ll continue to iterate.
We’ve taken in a lot of feedback and will continue to monitor Beta in the coming months. This work is also tied into class changes, iterations on stats and formulas, and new content that’s being introduced. We’ll also use the extra time to push a bit harder on aspects of our existing tradeskills and provide additional support to systems that factor into that experience.
Progression and Moment-to-Moment Feel
This work is ongoing as well, and ties into class revisions, itemization, and other systems work. It’s an area where we continue to get feedback and benefit significantly from having changes receive more playtest time on Beta. We’ll continue to look at TTK, difficulty at various levels, experience rates in different grouping constructs, and how best to support all of this work within content.
Content Additions and Polish
While the systems guys continue work on balance, additional zones are coming online (including work on Fallen Watch and at least one more dungeon: Rothold) and we’re looking at revisions, additions, and polish to the existing world. There’s still plenty we can do to make moment-to-moment combat more engaging through better diversity of mobs, mob abilities, and behaviors.
While this is going on, quest designers will continue to work in parallel to add more quests and revise some of the existing ones.
Environment artists are in a similar boat, in that they’ve been working ahead on Module 1/Deep zones, while hitting polish and finalization on existing zones.
5 months isn’t a massive amount of time, but we plan on making good use of it.
Zone Stability and Performance
Earlier this year, we revamped our inventory system to support additional features like mounts, regional banks, additional storage in housing, etc. This introduced some new issues; some of which manifested as lag in Night Harbor.
We’ve been working through those and getting things back to where they were before the changes. We’re also continuing to work on stability in general.
The additional time also allows us to continue to work on overall client performance.
UI and Remaining Feature Work
UI updates are rolling out daily. This includes the new character creation screens.
We’ll continue to work on the UI until we go live in October. In parallel to this, we’re continuing to work on fleshing out features like housing, mounts, religion, etc.
Again, this is all work that benefits from testing as it goes in, so we’re happy to not have to rush it quite as hard or throw it over the fence into EA.
Module 1 work
We’re now a 49 person team with many different efforts happening in parallel. Looking at the additional time needed for the above, we’re continuing to work on Module 1 and will be including that content as part of the Early Access launch.
That may mean that we’re continuing to polish this content up until the buzzer or during early EA, but you’ll be able to start your Deep Elves and Deep Gnomes with the rest of the players now. And we’ll be able to spread people across 4 starting areas instead of just 2.
Will Beta Continue?
We’ll continue to run the Beta and Beta Lottery between now and October. The data we’ve been collecting has been a great help and we’ve got a lot of changes, additions, and polish in the works.
Again, we appreciate your patience and realize that the delay is disappointing.
However, those of you that have continued to play, and hopefully will continue to play and provide feedback, are making a difference. Even if we’re not always responding to every comment or thread, the topics are definitely making their way to the team.
Open Playtest Friday, May 29th - Sunday, June 7th
We know it’s not the same as getting started on your real character, but we hope to make the delay up to you at least a little with some additional open playtests. For people that have never played before, maybe this will also help you save $15 bucks if you end up not liking the game.
The first of these will occur on May 29th and last that first week of June.
We’ll be using the previous servers/characters for this playtest.
Is the game doomed!?
The reality is we could probably go live by this weekend. The only thing we haven’t tested at scale is our subscription flow.
Beyond that, we’re currently providing 24/7 access to our Beta Servers and have thousands of people playing each week. As part of that, we’ve ramped up our GM team and they’ve been handling petitions pretty much around the clock.
I’ll provide a glimpse at some data below.
So, we could maintain the June 1st target date, but we don’t feel that the game would be as good as it could be.
Like I said above, there’s a ton to do still, but we’re very focused on going hard this spring and summer, and providing a much better experience in October (and beyond).
It feels like we’re getting into a good spot as a team and finding our groove in many ways, so hopefully you’ll see that coming to fruition as you continue to check out Beta this summer.
If the team is 49 people, does that mean you need 50k subs in October?
No, the bulk of our team is still planning on working on the project part time when we go live.
The subset of the team that’s in a situation where we’d like to get them paid as soon as possible is still about 12 people. They’ve sacrificed a ton for us, and we’re really hoping that enough of you enjoy the game come October to help make this possible.
If we’re able to maintain more than 10-15k subscribers in a stable manner over time, we’ll roll more people onto the team.
But for most of us, we’re working to see if we can make the game a reality, and hope to keep pushing it toward 1.0.
What’s this mean for the Merch Store?
We don’t want to take your money until the game is live. We deal with enough “It’s a rug pull like game X!” comments (oddly enough) that we think it’d be a bad idea to take money in any form until you’re actively playing your “forever” characters.
That said, we’ll still catch shit then for being a “paid beta” and whatnot even after that.
So, who knows… maybe if you create a big enough petition for it we’ll make it live before October. But for now, we’re pushing it along with the release date. We’ll make sure there are plenty of hoodie and beanie options though.
In Closing
Guys, we’re sincerely thankful for all of the support you’ve shown us. It’s been incredible. And it really does feel bad to know that people have been waiting and will be disappointed by this news.
We want the game to be better and, while it’s not a ton of time, we think the extra months will be put to good use.
Hopefully we’ll continue to see you in Beta, and we’ll be getting more of you in over time.
It’s been a blast secretly grouping with you, getting ganked by you, and reading /OOC on occasions where I can sneak in some play time. The team is constantly posting your comments and referencing their own experiences in game.
We’re excited to get into Early Access.
It’ll just be a few more months.