Roadmap
Welcome.
This is the roadmap for the final phase of the Death Trash Early Access.
We have avoided communicating concrete dates in the past. Working as a small team on a complicated game has been notoriously difficult, especially in regards to timely estimations. The Early Access took longer than we initially anticipated. For that we are sorry.
But during the Early Access we have improved the game and, equally important, our tools, workflows and knowledge. We are more confident now about handling the rest of the game and what time we'll need for that.
Note: These dates might still change. If one of the milestones takes longer than anticipated, all the later dates will be influenced by that, too, of course. And at the end of the day we won't call it final (1.0) if we are not happy with the state of the game and will instead put more work in. But the important thing here is, I hope, to see and to know that the end is actually in sight.
Milestones
Steam Input implementation
Current target: soon on the beta branch
The Perished City
Current target: mid-2024 on the beta branch
New locations and quests.
Improving item economy
Current target: fall 2024
This is about the range of items available in the game, inventory size, item balancing etc.
Northern Wasteland
Current target: end of 2024
New locations and quests.
Improving existing locations and gameplay
Current target: spring to mid 2025
This is in general about adding more depth to the game, both to the narrative parts as well as to the gameplay.
The Machine and the Watcher
Current target: mid- to late 2025
Final locations and quests.
Full release
Current target: mid- to late 2025
Post release
We will continue to support the game, of course. And as this game is very dear to us, this will probably happen for a long time. We haven't decided yet if the next project after this will be more directly connected to Death Trash or be a different take.
Console versions
Current target: end of 2025
We have no final decision on whether we follow through with publishing these ourselves or partnering up for that. Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo Switch versions are playable already but need more work.
Localization
Current target: unknown
We still don't know how much budget we'll have for additional languages. Production-wise it might make sense to have the localization added later than the 1.0 release so they can be done from a finished game instead of a still changing one. (If we had more experience we might try to have it all ready at once for the 1.0 release, but since our experience and resources are limited, we might rather approach this step by step.)
Level Editor
Current target: unknown
Mainly intended for users to create their own standalone adventures with the Death Trash gameplay and art assets. We might extend the functionality later on.
Extended mind item gameplay
Current target: might not happen
We have more gameplay ideas for Death Trash. But, realistically, we can't tackle all of them and have to shelve some of them for later. Enhancing the gameplay around the mind items might be one of these cases. We will revisit these ideas in the future.
Thank you
Thank you so much for your feedback and support so far. Death Trash has already become a much better game during Early Access and we couldn't have done that without you.
- Stephan
