ASYLUM News

Hello Steam community!

Have you heard the news? It happened. It's here. ASYLUM exists.



It's quite surreal to write this update, and it's gonna be days until the moment settles in. I'd like thank everyone for being such cool and supportive people over the years. I REALLY mean that. Everyone around these parts have been ultra nice, and even now our Steam forums are active and fun. I truly hope you all enjoy the game. It's no secret that development has been a nightmare and, as I write this, I still have Slack notifications popping up all over the place since the Senscape team is doing QA for the patch that we're about to launch.

About that: admittedly, the release had more bugs than I'd have wanted to see. We got a bit optimistic. Two dangerous decisions that we made too close to launch for comfort were to rework the main character's voice and translate ASYLUM to 10 more languages. Tackling this feat with a publisher would've been a crazy, now imagine self-publishing the game...

I think these were the right decisions, though — the new VO is being praised, and more people have been able to enjoy ASYLUM at launch. Of course, we are actively working on the bug fixing, and I'm perusing the forums to hear from you. ALL your reports and feedback are very much appreciated. Please, keep them coming! We want to ensure ASYLUM stands the test of time in pristine shape.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Launch has been successful, we're seeing positive reviews dropping in, and people are really enjoying the story, characters, and atmosphere. It's what we set out to do all this time: a love letter to the adventure genre, both a nostalgic trip, but featuring modern touches across the board. We can't wait to hear your thoughts and impressions when you're done with the game. About this: Steam reviews are extremely helpful at this stage! If you've already finished the game (quite a few of you did), feel free to leave a review, positive or negative, it doesn't matter. Even early reviews help too, and you can always change your rating if you loved/hated the game when you're done. Thank you for considering this, it's just that these days we are forced to fight against obscure algorithms. The machines are winning the war 🤖

ALSO, be sure to discuss theories and thoughts about the ending in the forums 👀


Oh, the story of ASYLUM doesn't end here. There's another story to be told, about how this crazy project came to be. Like The NeverEnding Story, everyone is part of it. YOU are part of this story too! Next steps are to release a special bundle in which you'll be able to acquire an Art Book featuring a glimpse into the early days of production, Soundtrack with variations on the music that you hear in the game, as well as the anticipated A Tour of Hanwell documentary, detailing the wild journey that was required to get to this point (all discounted for current customers, of course). And there's more too... more amazing adventures before we finally return to the ordinary world. But that's another story for another update.



Oh, and look at that. I finish writing the update and the patch is live! Check out the release notes, as surely a number of bugs that were annoying you have been fixed. Have a fun weekend playing ASYLUM, peeps!

—Agustín

Hello everybody! Well, this won't be one of the most exciting Steam updates ever, so let's make it blunt and to the point:

We're delaying the launch of ASYLUM by one week. New date is Thursday, March 13. Still 2025. Main reason is that we're recasting the protagonist since, following in-game clips that we shared in public, we received feedback that the character wasn't quite working out. We take such comments seriously and the Senscape team agreed, so during the weekend we made the difficult decision to make the switch.

I elaborate more on this 1-min video here:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

While not a huge setback, I know it's frustrating since we had committed to a date, you were excited, and there will be complains, and memes, and that's fine. We firmly believe this is what's best for the game. It's not a decision I took lightly either — we wouldn't be doing this if we weren't convinced that the game is special and worth this extra effort. I must say that the former actor gave a memorable performance in Serena, and he's a dear friend of mine. I'm really sorry this didn't work out. It's just that this important character (you, the players!) wasn't working out as was expected.

Details about the replacement actor will be shared shortly. Since the question popped up already: is this doable? Yes, because we're only doing voice-overs for dialogues, not every single feedback line (akin to Scratches). It's roughly 2000 lines, and yes, it can be done in a week. We've managed worse. It's going to tight, but hey, it's always been like that with ASYLUM. It was always meant to be sheer madness until the last moment. But the game is worth this rollercoaster of emotions, that I can promise.

So that's pretty much the purpose of this update. As I explained in the above video, this allows us to reconfirm all 10 languages (besides English) that we were aiming for launch: French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Ukrainian.

And that's it. If you need to ask questions or vent, go ahead!

—Agustín

Greetings, everyone! I bring you a juicy update, possibly the last one before launch 👀

Quite a few topics to discuss, so let's get started, shall we?



First, to confirm the following: we were planning to launch an updated demo today during Next Fest, but decided to hold on for the time being. Every day counts now, and we're applying coats of polish and fixing bugs everywhere. While the demo was quite fine overall, it still had a few kinks to work out (ie: new intro not color graded yet), so I preferred to have the team keep focusing towards launch.

Technically speaking, we already participated in a Next Fest years ago, and we might launch the demo next week in case you want to verify the game runs well on your device.



When we removed the planned localizations from the store page as we wanted to launch ASAP, there were sad faces 😔

I don't like sad faces, so we put in motion an extremely ambitious plan with a group of translators we've been in touch with over the years. As I'm writing this, the localization strike team is sending me translated documents that we're already implementing.

How many languages, you ask? Here's the confirmed list:

• French
  
• German
  
• Greek
  
• Italian
  
• Polish
  
• Portuguese
  
• Russian
  
• Spanish
  
• Turkish
  
• Ukrainian
  

While there's always the possibility that some of these might not make it exactly by launch since it's a tight deadline, we're talking about a potential delay of mere days. See and marvel at how the language selection works:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Hopefully this news will prompt more happy faces 😄



Because there's no better sign of an imminent launch than recording voice overs. We're so satisfied with how the script turned out, that we licensed a technology called Speech Graphics to improve the lip sync of our characters. You can see and hear it in action in this video:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
I know it's not AAA, but it's still a far cry than anything we ever did in this area for ASYLUM. Also, we're aware that the protagonist sounds rather flat in this conversation, and we're doing retakes. There's a sweet spot that's difficult to achieve here, since you're an ex-patient after all and meant to sound like a hollow blank slate. But just so you know, it's on our radar.

One more cool moment for you to check out:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


After a lot of thought, I've decided the launch price will be... *drum roll*... $24.99. With a 10% discount during the first week, and regional tweaks for certain countries.

People tell me this is awfully cheap, but we're not in this for the money — just the fame and glory.



There's been lots and LOTS of work on the sound design department. This was the #1 feedback from the earlier demo and internal testing, and we addressed it. It's a massive improvement across the board, with a fully revised soundtrack, weird ambient noises, screams, sploshes, gooey stuff... The Hanwell Mental Institute is now fully alive and breathing. Check out a short clip of your upcoming visit to the high-risk section here:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

One more thing: recently followers in our social networks sent us a series of questions that I responded in a recorded video. It was very well received, more than I expected, so here goes in case you folks want to take a listen. It's 30-mins long. There's insights about the development of ASYLUM, Scratches tidbits, gamedev advices, and news about what's coming next from us:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


And with system requirements! We confirmed these just today. The ones that were listed until now were a bit dated, but the good news is that it's not a dramatic difference. Basically, a 10-year-old PC will manage just fine.

Check them out for yourself, and also do note the amazing new GIFs 🤓

https://store.steampowered.com/app/230210/ASYLUM/

And... that's it! I'm sorry if you were expecting today's Next Fest demo, but hang on in there — just a few more days!

-Agustín

As if life wasn't horrifying enough in 2025, we're getting ready to unleash more terror and dread upon you. Yes, in case you somehow missed the news, ASYLUM is launching on March 6. Many skeptical eyebrows have been raised, but true believers have accepted this news as a sign of the impending end of the world. So enjoy it while it lasts, because it's really happening this time!

I'm happy to report that the new trailer has been very well received, so much in fact that it became our most liked video ever on YouTube. But the good news don't stop there: we've surpassed 50.000 wishlists here on Steam, which puts us in great shape for launch! In fact, it's closer to 52k as of this writing. There's still time to reach 66.666, so make sure you tell your loved ones, heck, why not your hated ones too, about the game!

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There will be a few more updates here before we go live, and I'm eager to tell you about the materials we're preparing for the Steam crowd: emojis for every occasion, trading cards, cool wallpapers you'll definitely want to use... oh, and it's already running well on the Deck too! We need to adjust controls and a few other tweaks to get that Verified ✅ checkmark for launch.



We also confirm that ASYLUM will be featured on Next Fest February with a fully revised demo. There will be a bunch of fun activities and streams. And if you're looking to get one of those coveted Scratches keys: another big giveaway is coming!

The whole team is stoked with how the game looks and feels, and I trust the passion and dedication we invested into this thing will soon show. Everyone is working hard to ensure we deliver a smooth and bug-free experience. And thanks for the patience throughout all this time — the community here on Steam is just great 😊

See you soon!