A message to the Tavern Keeper community

Sadly, we had to postpone our long-awaited Early Access Release. I know many here are really looking forward to the game so I wanted to take a moment to share a bit more about why we have come to this decision.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the announcement, the game at the moment is actually in a good state! All mechanics are implemented. It is content complete, has full English voice over and all translations should be ready within the week. The tutorial works great, the Early Access campaign (and stories) are fun and you’d likely have a great time playing it IF, and this is the crucial point, IF you know how to avoid a number of existing pitfalls.

Some staff can get stuck forever, some mechanics interact with each other in ways that make them hard to control, some UI elements and mechanics are a little too confusing. There are some performance issues and sometimes errors occur that interrupt or halt gameplay. In short: the likelihood that you would get frustrated while playing is currently a little too high for a great first experience.

The good news is that all these issues - given just a bit of time - are solvable, but if we had tried to stick to the November release plan, we’d likely have burned out the team in the process. You don’t want a burned-out team and you especially don’t want a burned-out team at the end of more than ten years of development and at the start of your Early Access journey. We’d also be launching into Early Access with a list of known issues that would keep us busy and prevent us from properly responding to your feedback in a timely fashion.

So, with heavy hearts but with clear minds, we have made the decision to postpone the release, giving us the breathing space to address the frustrations and to do things right.

We’ll announce a new release window next year, when we are ready.

When Tavern Keeper releases into Early Access, it will hopefully bring you joy, and both the game and the team will be ready for your input!

Patrick
And The Tavern Keeper Team