The End
[p]This will be a long post (goodbyes often are) and for those who prefer it short, I’ll summarize it here.[/p][p]As the topic indicates, this is the end of the development of Edge of War. After working for almost two years purely on spare time, most of that as solo, it started to feel too much of an unpaid second job instead of an exciting side-project. The energy to push it through for the years to come just ran out. [/p][p]When Steam has done the sunset process, the game will disappear from the store. It will of course stay available for those who bought it in early access.[/p][p]We will also investigate options to provide the latest version as free through some other means in future, to give a chance to try it out and not make all the hard work put on it by many people to just disappear. Maybe it’ll give enjoyment to some, or provide inspiration to some other games.[/p][p]We want to thank you all for supporting us during the adventure. Thank you.[/p][h2]The long post part[/h2][p]When I started playing computer games back in the 80s, the RPGs captured my heart. Few first ones that I really remember playing back in the days with my C64 were Ultima 3 and Curse of the Azure Bonds. All the way from there, I’ve had a massive passion for CRPGs. [/p][p]Having worked on multiple commercial game titles during my career, I never really ended up having a chance to work on CRPG games before, therefore having a chance to work on Edge of War was something really special for me. [/p][p]It was also special in the way that I had a chance to have a big part in shaping different aspects of it, from designing the rule system to working on implementing main systems of the game and having my fingers on the story itself as well. [/p][p]A dream project in so many ways.[/p][p]A few years back, we had a small but amazing team of talented individuals pushing the game forward. We had a publisher who really seemed to have a lot of faith in us and everything was going according to plan. It really felt like we were going to create something extremely exciting. Something that would be always mentioned when people are talking about the top CRPGs.[/p][p]But sometimes you run out of good luck and things take a nasty twist. [/p][p]Due to their internal reasons, our publisher terminated the publishing contract and as we failed to secure another publishing deal in such a short term, in a couple of months we had to let everyone in the studio go. [/p][p]But we loved the game too much to just let it go and disappear. So few of us decided to keep on working on it in our spare time. For the first half a year, Antti (our lead level designer) spent quite a chunk of evenings and weekends with me to push the game forward. There was nice progress, even though there was also a massive amount of work to do as well.[/p][p]After that, Antti had other responsibilities to fill spare time, so I kept going mostly on my own. We had a few of the earlier team members jump in to help with a few things every now and then as well, but it was mostly solo development.[/p][p]Early Access sales were really low all the time, so in practice all the sales we got were spent to pay for tooling licenses and such. But it was a passion project, not made with gold coins as a motivator.[/p][p]During last summer, I decided that I’ll have a bit longer break from development to just gain some more energy for the next development push. Having been constantly on my computer during my spare time for so long, I just spent my time in nature, read some books and just took the time off. And when I returned back, I did not feel like going forward with development.[/p][p]It still felt like a big dream to make the game to the end, but it did not feel worth it anymore. Developing it almost solo for years and spending most of spare time with it did not just feel like something I felt excited anymore. I think that in a way I had to take some distance to notice that it was time to let it go. Realizing that was really sad, but it was also a big relief. [/p][p]Burying a dream project is never easy, but in this case it's the right thing to do. [/p][p]Hopefully, there is still another dream project waiting for all of us somewhere in the future.[/p][p]I want to thank all of you who have been part of this adventure, your support and kind words have been heart warming. We could not have hoped for a better community. [/p][p]Thank you![/p][p]And goodbye for now,[/p][p]HP[/p]