The TurnBasedLovers take a look at the upcoming turn-based games:

• MONSTER LOGIC – 6th July
• RIFT WIZARD (E.A.) – 6th July
• SODA DUNGEON 2 – 9th July
• ARIA CHRONICLE – 12nd July
• DEAD AGE 2 – 16th July
• VAGRUS: THE RIVEN REALM – 22nd July
• THE FEUD – 22nd July
• OTHERCIDE – 28th July
• FAIRY TAIL – 30th July
• Imperiums: Greek Wars – 30th July
• MONSTER CROWN – 31st July
• GUILE & GLORY: FIRSTBORN (E.A.) – July
• AGAINST THE MOON – July

Thanks henriquejr!

Forgottenlor checked out Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus, which has some RPG elements, but is probably not considered a real RPG. Still we did feel that there would be sufficient interest for this game, amongst our readers.

There is something that connects Games Workshop computer games and tactics games. There are a lot of them on the market at the moment and most of them are forgettable. Unlike Wizards of the Coast, which hands the D&D licence out rarely, and then mostly for games like MMORPGs or action games that have little to do with their pen and paper games, it seems anyone can apply for the Warhammer licence, and make almost any game they like. Mechanicus isn't a game with a big budget, epic proportions, or revolutionary ideas. But it does make the most of its Warhammer 40k license. For those who like tactics games with some RPG elements and are who willing to play a game without cinematic cut scenes or state of the art animations, Mechanicus has quite a bit to offer.

RockPaperShotgun had some questions for Larian about Baldur's Gate 3.

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New Baldur’s Gate 3 gameplay? Go on then. And loads of new Baldur’s Gate 3 information as we quiz the game’s lead system designer about combat, stealth, classes and, er, how vampires work in Baldur’s Gate 3. Loads of juicy stuff here, and more to come!

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Our first Baldur’s Gate 3 gameplay breakdown explained stealth and combat, and now we look at Baldur’s Gate 3 spells, death, alcohol, reactions, halflings… all the words that get your video flagged. I hope you enjoy this Baldur’s Gate 3 features deep dive with Larian Studios' Nick Pechenin.

@DSOGaming Action RPG Hellpoint will release July 30th.

Cradle Games and publisher tinyBuild have announced that Hellpoint will release on July 30th. Hellpoint is a sci-fi Dark Souls-inspired action RPG, set in the aftermath of a massive quantum cataclysm called the Merge. 

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Thanks Farflame!

IGN has played Mortal Shell and shared their impressions.

Each Shell’s Got a Story to Tell

Then there are the Mortal Shells themselves, which essentially introduce class-based gameplay to the Souls-like genre in a way that hasn’t really been done before. The closest comparison is the blood code system in Code Vein. As you play, you’ll discover new Shells that each have their own unique stats and skills. In my demo, I only came across two: The starting shell, Harros the Vassal, which is a more tanky shell that has increased health, less stamina, and skills that affect his survivability; and Tiel the Acolyte, who has a massive stamina pool, less life, a more effective vanish as opposed to a quick dash as a dodge, and a variety of skills that allow him to occasionally take damage to stamina instead of damage to health, grant him extra damage on a successful riposte, and heal some of the damage taken by poison, which was a massive pain in the ass throughout the demo.

Shells can be swapped out at certain spots in the world, or an item can be used to swap them out on the fly, allowing you to make use of their unique characteristics as they become necessary.

As you’d imagine, when you defeat enemies you collect a currency that is used for both character progression and for buying items from the various shops. But unlike what you might imagine, character progression in Mortal Shell doesn’t take the form of traditional level ups. Instead, you use this currency, known as tar, to first learn the name of your equipped Shell, which then opens up their skill tree. Each skill costs both Tar and another currency called “Glimpses” to learn. Glimpses are gained by beating certain enemies or by finding itemized glimpses in the world, but unlike Tar, glimpses are only granted upon the first time you take them out. This I imagine, is how Cold Symmetry discourages players from farming easy enemies repeatedly in order to max out a character’s skill tree right away.

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Thanks Farflame!

Last month Black Book funded on Kickstarter.The games prologue is free to try on Steam if you want to check it out.

GeneMyLong recommends the unknown (at least in the west) Chinese RPG Gujian 3:

Gujian 3 On Sale Now!

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Steam Sale ends July 9th, 2020. If you've been thinking about buying/playing Gujian 3, the game is now on sale. We've enjoyed this game and we're sure anyone can appreciate the creative music, engaging game play, and beautiful artwork.

Henriquejr spotted an update about the monsters of Solasta: Crown of the Magister:

Dev Update #16 - Here Be Monsters!

Hey there folks,

Hope you're all doing well in this fine summer weather! We've been hard at work on implementing quite a few new features... that we'll keep secret for now! Now don't worry, we still have plenty to share regardless. Without further ado, here is our first Dev Update of July - with your weekly dose of friendly feline attached to it.

Here Be Monsters!
Enough talk about adventurers, where are the monsters at? Give those poor goblins a break and show us something new. Well well well, today's your lucky day - for we're about to reveal not one, not two... but four new monsters you can look forward to meet in Solasta!

[...]

@Gematsu Werewolf: The Apocalypse will release February 4th 2021. In addition a new gameplay trailer has been released.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via the Epic Games Store on February 4, 2021, publisher Nacon and developer Cyanide Studio.

[...]

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Thanks Farflame!

@Gematsu Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning will release on PC September 8th. Additionally an expansion called Fatesworn will follow in 2021.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning will launch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam on September 8, and an expansion titled “Fatesworn” will follow in 2021, publisher THQ Nordic and developer Kaiko announced. Details will be announced at a later date.

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Thanks Farflame!

Spiders Studio have announced their new action RPG Steelrising at Nacon Connect - the game takes place in an alternate version of the French Revolution:

Nacon Connect

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• Vampire: The Masquerade 3:55
• Rims Racing Summer 2021 8:44
• Rogue Lords 12:25
• Future of Nacon 17:02
• Steelrising 19:25
• Werewolf 24:36
• Test Drive Unlimited 25:44
• Roguebook 29:36
• Other Small Announcments 35:00

The Kickstarter campaign was a success - here's some more Knight of the Chalice II info:

Update #33: Emails Sent, Will Fix Bugs ASAP, Will Handle Complaints!

Hello everyone! :-)

Okay I feel I need to make a small update to answer all concerns.

First of all, if you're wondering why I haven't been very present replying to comments on Kickstarter, or on Discord, or on my forums, or on RPG Codex, or approving messages on my forum, or replying elsewhere.

The reason is this: I'm just a human being, and since the end of the campaign, all my time was spent sending out emails and answering emails from people who haven't got their email, or who are late to the campaign but want to join, or who pledged but could not process their payment, or who have already tried the game but it's not working for them on their system.

On top of that I have a long-planned flight tonight and tomorrow which I had to prepare, too. So, with all of this taken into account, I just can't keep up with dozens of new Kickstarter comments / forum messages / Discord comments each day. Apologies for this! It doesn't mean I'm ignoring your concerns, quite the contrary.

I have sent emails with download details to nearly everyone. If you haven't got your email, please email me at enquiries@heroicfantasygames.com or through a Kickstarter private message and I will give you your details soon.

Now, on to the bugs. Obviously, by now I have been made very aware that the game has important bugs and stability issues, and a 64-bit Mac version for Mac Catalina OS needs to be made. I hear you guys and I apologise sincerely for the bugs. Yes, I will fix the bugs as soon as possible. And I will work on a 64-bit Mac version as soon as possible. This will be my priority from 8 July. I won't be working on any DLC or any extra content while there are important bugs in the game.

So please rest assured that the bugs will be fixed. I should be able to have a software update on or before 14 July. I've been working on this game for so long; obviously I want it to be bug-free. It's not a problem for me to remove bugs. In fact it is something I like to do. My process with KotC 1 was similar. There were about 36 updates for KotC 1. The game had many bugs in the beginning, now it's bug-free.

Now, on to expectations and accusations. Okay, I hear the complaint that I should have presented the current version of the game as a beta version, not as a finished version or as a full game. All right. I accept that and I apologise for it.

The reason why I have always presented it as a full game is because, for me at least, it was stable when I played through it and I did play through it from start to finish. So if it's stable for me, why should I present it as a beta version? Think about it, how could I even record all these combat videos if the game wasn't working for me or wasn't stable for me? Yes, you can say that I should have gone through a big testing phase prior to the campaign, and in hindsight yes I should have done that. I'm not perfect so I did not see this at the time.

What I mean to say is that it's never been my intention to deceive people. With that in mind, if you feel strongly that you have been lied to or that you were misled, and you don't trust me to fix the issues in a reasonable amount of time, please email me at enquiries@heroicfantasygames.com (or through the Kickstarter private messages) before 14 July and we will definitely find a solution.

I don't want anyone to feel bad about KotC 2 or have such strong negative feelings against me. Doing a Kickstarter is difficult enough with happy people but it's a hundred times harder with unhappy ones. So, please just contact me and everyone will be happy.

I hear a complaint that the game is too linear. I did mention here and there, most recently in the Q&A with Shane, that Augury of Chaos lacked the non-linear feeling of an open world and that you're mostly exploring underground levels, and that I wanted to create more of a non-linear feeling in upcoming adventures.

So, while I can totally accept criticism for the game having many bugs, I can't accept accusations of deception based on the game being linear. The adventure is what it is and I never claimed that it was a non-linear open-world adventure. All I said was that you have a number of ways to resolve situations, and that is true in many cases.

So, please be reasonable with your expectations and criticism of the game's content. I already feel enormous pressure to provide download links to the people who haven't got them already and to fix the game's major bugs ASAP, so please don't pile even more pressure on me for things like non-linearity. About the difficulty, we can adjust that later on.

Those are the main things I wanted to say today. The main points are: please be patient and I will fix the bugs ASAP and if you're really unhappy, please just contact me before 14 July. Please don't worry if you don't receive a reply before 8 July, I will definitely reply.

Thank you everyone and I hope that you will keep supporting the development of KotC 2! :-)

Matt Barton interviewed Brian Heins about Tyranny and The Outer Worlds:

Matt Chat 453: Brian Heins on Tyranny

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In this episode Brian and I finish up with The Outer Worlds before moving onto Tyranny and taking some questions sent in by some of the dirtiest rats I ever took an ax to.

Couchpotato spotted the announcement trailer for Revolution: The Spark:

Revolution: The Spark Announcement Trailer

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Introducing Revolution: The Spark, a story-driven, turn-based role-playing game about revolution of the masses in alternative Steampunk world. Coming out on Steam (Early Access) in Q3 2020!

How can you design meaningful player choices? - CD Projekt Red's Story Director Marcin Blacha has some answers:

How CD Projekt Red Designs Meaningful Player Choices

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Thanks Couchpotato!

Spidey1958 checked out the Beta-version of Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness:

Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness

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Thanks Couchpotato!

The post-apocalytic RPG Dust to the End will be released on August 31:

Game introduction

Dust to the End shows a world of wasteland in the last days, there is only one rule in the wasteland world, that is to do everything possible to survive! In order to survive, you can wander around in this open wasteland world, earn money by running merchants to form a caravan, and become a wasteland merchant on the rich side. In order to survive, you can also explore the entire world of dust, take your own expedition to search every abandoned underground ruins, and experience a fortune. In order to survive, you can even pull out a team to fight and rob around...

Background of the story

A nuclear war ended human civilization, and survivors spent a century of stagnation and safety hiding in an underground refuge. When the radiation on the ground gradually dissipated, the survivors returned to the surface and began the reconstruction of civilization. Sadly, mankind has not learned from the tragic ending of the previous round of civilization, and the history of fraud is repeated in this wasteland world. In order to compete for land and resources, the emerging forces began to make a big deal between them, doing wars, looting and even human trafficking. Not long ago, a human trafficking organization named "Black Death" ransacked a shelter called "507". After some looting, a large number of residents became captives. The protagonist escaped as a lucky 507, but survival is never easy, is it a stubborn survival or a persistent breath? Escape from reality or bloodthirsty revenge? When the protagonist walked out of the ruins of 507 and came to this wasteland world, these choices were already in front of him.

Game Features

• Materials in the wasteland world are scarce, and trade exchanges between regions are not close enough. This creates opportunities for merchants. There are nearly 50 towns of different sizes and more than 100 kinds of traded goods in the game.
• Each town has its own specialty products and demand goods. Players need to ascertain the town's production and demand, and then formulate trade routes to maximize the profits of businessmen.
• When you are on the way to run a business, you may meet passers-by for help and find an abandoned camp, or be robbed, guarded extortion, and a terrible desert storm.
• You will also encounter fierce roaring dogs, mutant giant beasts and other travelers and caravans.
• In order to run a business safely, you must hire mercenaries to form a caravan, and each mercenary has its own character.
• These personalities will affect the mood of each caravan member and the state of the caravan. Whether you can take this team well and handle interpersonal relationships will test the player's team management level.
• Mercenary mercenaries can quickly increase the combat strength of caravans to meet various challenges, but naturally there are more mercenaries than people. . Players must have sufficient funds to purchase equipment for the team mercenaries and pay weekly salary.
• Equipped with different weapons will have different combat skills. You can build a team based on the mercenary's occupation, skills and personal preferences.

MinusInfernoGaming has reviewed Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch:

Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch - Review

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Here's My Quick Review On The Fantastic RPG Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch For The PS4.

C4G checked out Gedonia:

Gedonia - New Open World RPG (Preview 2020)

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Gedonia is a new open world action rpg. It's a really ambitious one-man project, and there has been some major changes since the last time I covered this game.

The latest expansion for Battle Brothers, Blazing Deserts, will release August 13th.

The largest and most ambitious DLC for Battle Brothers yet is almost ready. We’re happy to announce that the ‘Blazing Deserts’ DLC for Battle Brothers will be released on August 13th for the price of $14.99 or your regional equivalent. You can already find and wishlist it right here.



The artwork above can also be downloaded as a wallpaper here.

The 'Blazing Deserts' DLC for Battle Brothers expands the game with new lands of burning deserts and lush oases to the south. Visit independent city states, fight in the arena, face desert raiders and southern beasts in battle. Wear new gear inspired by Arabian and Persian cultures of the medieval ages, employ alchemical contraptions and primitive firearms, and forge your own path when the fires of religious turmoil threaten to engulf the world in a new late game crisis.

Features

• New Lands - Visit new lands to the south with independent city-states that have their own lore, equipment and services, as well as entirely new character backgrounds to recruit.
• Retinue - Hire non-combat followers for your retinue to customize your campaign experience to fit your playstyle. Hire a drill sergeant to train your men. Never lose shields again with a blacksmith that can repair gear no matter how damaged. Buy carts for additional inventory space.
• Arena - Fight in front of cheering spectators to earn coin, experience and unique rewards as an alternative to mercenary work.
• New Crisis - Survive a new late game crisis that tests the mettle of your company in the fires of religious turmoil.
• New Opponents - Face new factions of city state soldiers and desert raiders, complete with their own gear and unique mechanics. Hunt down and get hunted by desert beasts.
• New Origins - Play using one of three new southern-themed origins, each with special rules that shape your campaign into a different experience from beginning to end.
• New Banners and Gear - Dress in style with a collection of new banners, shields, helmets and armors inspired by Arabic and Persian culture. Use new weapons, alchemical contraptions and primitive firearms.
• Legendary Location - Visit a new legendary location and fight a new boss in a quest that leads to a legendary reward.
• New Location Environments - Fight amidst southern ruins and nomad tents on the tactical combat map, in addition to graveyards and encampments by brigands, orcs and goblins that come with a free update to the base game.
• New Contracts and Events - Earn your stay in the south by taking on new contracts. Immerse yourself in leading a mercenary company with even more illustrated events.
• New Music - Several new music tracks set the mood on your adventures.
• New Achievements - Challenge yourself with new achievements.

Please note: You'll be able to continue your current campaign with the DLC, but you won't have access to all of the new content until you start a new campaign. Starting a new campaign is very much recommended.

A new update for Colony Ship talks about the armory and conversation screens.

We're wrapping up the Armory (the second location), so we can finally show you something other than the starting town. Let's start with the intro:

With row after row of gutted depots, the Armory stretches before you as a shell of what it once was.  The mutineers hit it fast and hard, overrunning the surprised security forces and stripping it of supplies. Weapons and armor meant for the future colony flooded the Ship, turning the Mutiny into a full-fledged war. The Ship Authority held its own in the end, keeping control of the lower decks, but at a great cost that went far beyond the Armory's lost supplies.

Your destination lies ahead – a reinforced door flanked by twin auto-cannons drawing on a seemingly inexhaustible power supply. No one made it past during the Mutiny, and no one's made it past since. Like the proverbial flaming sword outside of Eden, it sits as a guardian, a symbol of ancient strength, and a promise of marvels beyond.

You get the access card from Tanner (as mentioned in the combat demo), so getting past the automated security on that floor will be easy. However, you'd have to get past the local thugs first. You can fight or talk your way through or simply sneak past them. Multiple quest solutions are one of the cornerstones of our design philosophy.

- The old dialogue box at the bottom of the screen wasn't big enough to fit all the text and PC options in more heated conversations, so we went with a vertical setup. It's still work in progress (we switched to it a week ago) so feel free to offer suggestions for improvement.  I can't say I like it but it's either this or what we had in AoD or using a scrollbar to make sure you see all the options.

- We wanted to show the skills (you can see them leveling up while talking) but you'll be using all skills not just speech and there's no room to fit them all. Maybe something like index tabs on the side?

- On the dialogue design itself: in AoD it was easy to fail a check and end up dead or in combat. In Colony Ship failures and successes modify the disposition, giving you a chance to recover from your mistakes. For example, this reputation check leads to 3 outcomes:

low rep: disposition -2

“You high or somethin’?” Sharp Face asks, grinning wide. Clearly, he’s a man who appreciates quality entertainment.

medium rep: disposition +1

“Big words,” says Sharp Face, licking his lips. “The fuck you want here anyway?” The sudden change of tone indicates that he no longer sees you as an easy mark.

high rep: disposition +4

“Easy there, friend,” says Sharp Face, raising his palms to show he comes in peace. “No need to get all worked up over a joke. So, uh, what brings you here?” The forced casualness makes it clear that you’ve been promoted from prey to rival.

Let's show him the card instead:

[...]

Crit Hit reviewed the Enhanced Edition of Ara Fell:

Crit Hit Reviews Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition! Was this RPG Remake Remarkable?

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Sirus Gaming checked out the Visual Novel Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen:

Utawarerumono Prelude to the Fallen – Review

Combining the narrative prowess of visual novels with tactical RPG gives you this beautiful video game: Utawarerumono – Prelude to the Fallen. This game is filled with so many tales of its characters, kingdoms, villages, and more and pairs it with revolution, rebellion, and wars. Now that it has come to the PlayStation 4, the game has improved in so many ways compared to its original version and port.

Utawarerumono – Prelude to the Fallen has a deep lore that you would get lost in it if you do not pay attention to its explanations scattered in different dialogues across the whole story. These critical details range from the gods who created their world to the sacred beings that reside in deep forests and the villages who worship them. If you are a person who would have a hard time remembering a lot of information, then you should stay away from this, or else you would be surprised with the turn of events in certain chapters.

[...]

Utawarerumono – Prelude to the Fallen is just like any visual novel that I would recommend. It might have a slow start, but it picks up the pace once you pass a certain point. The strategy RPG part is interesting as well. If you like visual novels, you can keep a copy, but for just the experience just borrow a copy and be done with it. It is enjoyable as a one-time play only.

Score: 6/10

USGamer interviewed the Bloodlines 2 devs:

Bloodlines 2's Developers on Next-Gen, Immersion, and Seattle in the World of Darkness

Hardsuit Labs isn't winding up to miss the mark.

Hardsuit Labs had stayed fairly quiet in the months leading up to last month's Xbox showcase. Since the Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 developer announced a delay in October of last year, pushing the sequel of a cult-classic vampire RPG into the latter half of 2020, the studio seems to have been mostly heads-down in development.

[...]

A City in Darkness

The world Gregg and the Hardsuit Lab team wants to immerse players in with Bloodlines 2 is Seattle, or at least, a fictionalized version of it. Where the first Bloodlines played out in California, with depictions of Hollywood and Santa Monica, the sequel heads up the Pacific Coast to rainy Seattle, which entails a bit of a change in scenery.

Mitsoda has stressed the importance of place in the past for Bloodlines 2; in making sure that the Seattle portrayed in Bloodlines 2 is honest to the real-world version, and not shying away from the real issues Seattle faces.

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

Couchpotato spotted a team update of the Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem devs:

Team Status Update

What's up and what's coming?

Hello everyone!

We know that you’ve been expecting some news from the status of the team and our progress on future content, and we would like to share a bit more about the upcoming plans for Wolcen.

Our team is currently working on two fronts: the final Second Dawn patch(1.0.16.0) with its bug fixing and balancing review, which will be delivered in late July, and the first Chronicle(1.1.0) for which we’re currently aiming for Autumn 2020.
The Chronicle will bring additional content, gameplay changes, performance improvements, and we will start to communicate in more detail about it around early September. Stay tuned though, we might start to tease a bit about it sooner than that through various social media ;)

We’re now making our final touches to the Second Dawn bug fixing patch, our Communication and QA teams are currently in contact with various players of Wolcen to gather their opinion on bug fixing, QoL improvements, and balancing changes. This feedback will allow us to refine some of our priorities for Second Dawn and future Chronicles.

In other news, Wolcen Studio is growing. Almost 10 new talented members have joined our team since the release, and we’re still recruiting for a lot of positions. We’re all progressively coming back to the office following the pandemic, but we’re now almost 50 and our current office is getting a bit crowded. Therefore, we also plan to move to new offices by the end of the year to be able to welcome everyone on-site if the circumstances allow it, and we will do our best to make sure that it doesn’t affect our schedule for the second Chronicle.

Finally, we will soon add a Support page on our website to facilitate contact with our Customer Support team. Instead of going through the Contact web form, you’ll now have a dedicated page to contact our Support team, who will answer your requests as soon as possible.

Thank you for your continued support!

The openworld RPG Horizon Zero Dawn will be released for the PC on August 7:

Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition for PC – PC Features Trailer

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Gematsu reports that Spiders will annouce their new game at Nacon Connect on JUly 7.

Thanks Couchpotato!

The Backer Beta for Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness begins on July 3:

Greetings, adventurers!

The Backer Beta has been ready for several days, and it’s bigger than we initially planned!

Having said that, as with every beta, it contains bugs – some of which we don't know about and you will hopefully help us to find. Also, it lacks several features, refinements and performance optimizations that didn’t make it to the beta but will be present in the final game.

Getting the Beta on Steam and GOG store pages takes much longer than the official information we received about it before. Therefore, we decided today that we will be shipping the Backer Beta directly to the eligible backers (those of you who pledged at the Early Access reward tier and above, or chose the Backer Beta add-on).

Regarding Steam and GOG, everything seems to be on the right track, so the Beta will eventually be available on GOG and Steam as well (depending on whether you have specified a GOG or a Steam key in BackerKit). In the meantime, however, we will ship the Backer Beta as a direct download.

This process will begin on the 3rd of July at the latest and will take a couple of days. We will notify every backer whose reward tier included the Backer Beta via email with instructions on how to receive the installer. If you don't receive such an email until 6th July, please send us a message on Kickstarter or via our contact forms.

Vagrus: The Riven Realms will enter Early Access on GOG and Steam on July 22:

Vagrus enters Early Access on Steam and GOG.com on July 22

We promised that we would bring Vagrus - The Riven Reams to you in Early Access on Steam and GOG.com when we felt the game was ready for it. Today we are proud and exhilarated to announce that the time has come, and now we know the exact date.
Vagrus - The Riven Realms enters Early Access on Steam and GOG.com simultaneously on July 22, 2020.

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