We are not doing a new Kickstarter.
Now that the initial shock is over let’s talk about the good news.
Instead of a second kickstarter we are going to do our own Early Access on this site until we have a build that can officially go up on Steam Early Access. Yep, we feel we pretty much have a solid enough build that we feel comfortable putting it out there. It will be rough, buggy and lack features/content but it will be Ground Branch and will give you a very good idea of what that actually means.
We are finally there people!
While getting the UE4 build far enough along to get decent KS material, we realized that we were actually pretty close to having something playable. I saw that we could spend a month building out the KS material then another month running the KS or we could spend that time finalizing the build, getting our licensing in order and the EA infrastructure in place to actually get GB out there in playable form. In the amount of time it would take to create the KS then run the campaign, you will be able to play and support GB! So in the not to distant future you will be able to financially support GB while playing it and while getting constant updates and giving us feedback.
There are a few very important things that are happening before we can actually launch this thing. We have a “punch list” of items that must be done before anything gets released. More importantly, we still need to get the final engine licensing paperwork(certain things need to be done before we can ship anything to the public) with Epic completed and all of their legal items in place. This may take a few more weeks, but the process has started. Don’t worry things aren’t going to drag out that long.
We will be handing out a build or two to a select small group of forum members before going public to make sure we have all the kinks worked out. Final licensing paperwork must be in place for that as well. We will soon expose a “store” page here that will list various support tiers just like a kickstarter, though you will get an actual download link once the transaction is complete. We plan to follow the lead of successful early access titles that paved their own way like Door Kickers and Overgrowth.
We feel this is a win win situation and one that allows us to grow Ground Branch development at a natural pace. It allows us to hold true to our mantra: ‘Do not build a community around a game….. Build a game around a community’
Keep checking back for more information as everything is finalized over the next few weeks.
