Well, this certainly is quite the surprise. A game that I had been waiting on for years it seems, has arisen from the dead. Well, it wasn’t dead, but in terms of updates of the title, it might as well have been. I’m referring to, of course, The Astronauts first-person shooter known as Witchfire. It would seem that that developer feels the way I do and has not only provided an update but a dev massive update.
There’s so much to go over, this is like a massive data dump, and I love it. So, let’s go over the most important bit. That game is very much still in development, and things are coming along nicely. As such, The Astronauts have mentioned that Witchfire could be released for the PC as an Early Access title during Q4 2022. They didn’t want to provide an exact date since release dates and rather a release window.
As for what’s taking the game’s development so long, it’s a marathon and not a sprint. The Astronauts have been studying some of the more recent rogue-lite games such as Hades, Dead Cells, Risk of Rain, and others. Mainly because they enjoy the elements of those games and they want to incorporate what makes some so damned good. Honestly, it sounds like a novel idea.
It doesn’t help development that Witchfire is going to be a massive game, full of lore and world-building. The world-building alone can take years, and we still don’t know the scope of Witchfire, but this at least tells us what’s going on.
Still, they felt that perhaps they were taking us, their fans for granted. Which is something they didn’t want to be the case. So they’re being as transparent as possible. Something of which I wish more developers would do. Of course, it’s not required but it does show they do give a damn about us and our interest in their game.
The Astronauts have assured that development is still ongoing despite the lack of updates, which might continue to be a thing. Positive things have been happening, such as the team working alongside another team, which has helped them redesign a few characters that will be featured in Witchfire.
As for when we’ll get an actual release date for Witchfire. Well, they’ve seen a thing or two and have decided that perhaps announcing it before they’re ready to do so wouldn’t be a good idea. Something that I definitely agree with.
Of course, they had to sneak in a reminder that while they’re slaving away on Witchfire. That we need to remember that this is a small team of nine. Not a vast team with infinite resources, so development is going to take a while.
Finally, they made it known they have been listening to their fans and wanted to hold a Q&A to end this massive update. Here are the cliff notes of those replies.
- No, Witchfire won’t have any NFT nonsense.
- They are toying with the possibility of having checkpoints in the game. Comparisons to the Soulsborne games were made, and those games are 3rd persona perspective games with relatively slow movement. While Witchfire is 1st person game with fast movement.
- Witchfire won’t have co-op, as the game has been planned as a single-player experience. But never say never.
- Witchfire’s world will include a hideout – a safe space for the player’s character. That’s the only place that you can ever call safe. Everything else is out to kill you.
- The inventory system will be unlimited for storing stuff, but your character will be limited in what can be equipped at any given time.
- Weapons and spells can be upgraded.
- No RNG when it comes to weapons, meaning no randomized perks.
- Witchfire will be playable offline. No always-online crap.
- The game is being developed in Unreal Engine 4, with no plans to move to Unreal Engine 5.
- They are exploring the possibility of incorporating Nvidia’s, AMD’s, and Intel’s visual technologies. But will only add those if it benefits the game.
- Ultrawide monitor support (21:9) support is in, as some of the devs are using them for development.
- The game will feature an element system, allowing players to use elemental abilities. Those abilities can also be combined (think Magicak).
- There’s only one difficulty level.
- There will be an option to have the crosshair centered.
- Expect lots of secrets in the game’s world.
- Devs are not sure if Witchfire will be speedrun friendly.
- There will be a lot of weapons, but they aren’t saying how many as of yet.
- Gameplay is a mixture of an arena and traversal-ey’ shooter (think Gears of War or DOOM).
There’s a lot more in this dev update and if you’ve been waiting for Witchfire to magically appear or something. Then I recommend giving the dev update a read. Especially since most of what I said has been paraphrased, and honestly, the entire read is eye-opening stuff.
Witchfire was announced during The Game Awards 2017, by the developers of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Painkiller, and Bulletstorm. Witchfire, as described by The Astronauts, is a dark fantasy shooter, with lots of lore and world-building. Witchfire was also one of the titles I was looking forward to in 2018. Needless to say, I’m still looking forward to it, and that Early Access announcement has me excited.
While the full game doesn’t have a release date, an Early Access window for the PC has been announced for Q4 2022.
