Wed 13th September 2006

  • Wed 13th September 2006


Since my last update back in April we have barely had time to stop and catch our breath. The game was shown at E3 and received a lot of interest, we ran the beta test and slightly delayed the initial release date in order to accommodate some of the excellent feedback and suggestions we received during the beta period. The Ship was released on Steam on the 11th July and there were immediately loads of packed servers.

No time to pause as we still had single player to complete for the retail release. Unfortunately for us when the game went live on Steam we encountered a number of new problems which hadn’t arisen during the beta test and so we struggled to continue finishing off the single player and also provide speedy fixes to update the game.

The Ship was reviewed in a number of magazines and on a number of websites and although the remaining bugs undoubtedly had an impact on our scores the game was largely favourably received (averaging a score of 75/100).

Between the release and where we are now (on the verge of a European retail release) things have been very tough indeed. We had to finish the single player game, finish the tutorial, finalise box art and the manual and have everything approved by our publisher. While this process went on we also spent as much time as possible fixing and improving the online game and answering people in the busy forums.

This week sees the first retail release in Europe and a large update to the online game which includes numerous bug fixes, improvements, tweaks and two entirely new multiplayer maps. We are hoping this will provide a boost to the online community and get the servers buzzing again. With further retail releases across Europe this month and a US retail release in the New Year the player base should continue to grow. We are also planning a free weekend to allow undecided people to try out the game and we are confident this will attract a lot of new players.

Over the next few months we will continue to fix bugs where identified and also add some new content such as new outfits, new weapons, new traps, new maps and some more visual effects.

It has been a tough slog for the team but everyone is still motivated by their desire to please our customers and create a memorable and fun gameplay experience for them. It’s not always easy to stay motivated, especially when problems arise and you’ve already been working flat out for months so I’d like to thank the fans for their kind comments and encouragement, at times it is the only thing that has kept us going.

We hope everyone enjoys the new update and that the existing online community will give our new retail customers a warm welcome.