The Astronauts have announced that their upcoming dark fantasy shooter Witchfire has been delayed until early 2023, but it’s perhaps for the best of reasons. The developers are looking to upgrade the scope of the game in a massive way, changing the gameplay from a linear arena shooter into a fully-fledged open world experience.
The news was explained by The Astronauts’ Creative Director and Co-Founder Adrian Chmielarz in a blog post on the developer’s official website: “The [open-world] feature is now 95% implemented. It makes the game better. It is kind of hard for me to imagine the player did not have that freedom before. Sure, you can still be trapped by the witch in this or that spot, and some doors will be closed until you find a key, and it might be too dangerous to enter areas closer to the boss before you are ready– but the world is wide open for you to explore in almost any order, and you can both push forward and retreat as you please.”
Witchfire was initially slated to launch into early access on the Epic Games Store in Q4 2022, but The Astronauts opted to delay Witchfire as they wanted to prioritise great gameplay over just hitting the previous release date. Still, if this isn’t enough info about the game, Chimielarz has promised there’ll be an update later in the month regarding Witchfire’s story: “Last but not least, expect something nice in a week or two. Let’s call it Witchfire Halloween Week. It won’t be any gameplay footage or stream or such, but if you are interested in the story and the world and great 2D art, it’s going to be a treat.”
Witchfire is scheduled to launch into early access on the Epic Games Store in early 2023.
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