15 years after it first entered development - and nine years after it first hit Early Access - the legendary roguelike RPG Caves of Qud is finally set to launch in 2024. After announcing that news last year, the devs at Freehold Games have now provided a roadmap to launch.
Caves of Qud differs from other old-school roguelikes with its big emphasis on narrative, blending handcrafted elements and procedural generation to build a unique quest system. The game's other claim to fame is its Dwarf Fortress-level physical simulation system, which allows you to, for example, literally melt stone walls if you can generate the heat necessary to do so. Characters are simulated just as robustly as the world, right down to individual body parts, so you can imagine the possibilities for emergent sandbox shenanigans.
Getting the main storyline finished will be the developers' big project this year. "We don’t want to spoil everything," the devs say in a Steam post, "but throughout summer and fall our central project will be to finish the main quest, and then add something to satisfy those who complete the entire narrative arc of Caves of Qud. We’ll add a more hands-on tutorial, too."
That puts the proper 1.0 launch at "late 2024," which the devs are keeping purposefully vague. "No, we don’t have a date, as it’s still a while away and we don’t want to be up against the marketing budget of the next Assassin’s Cry: Breath of the Duty (trademark pending)."
Other big touches planned for launch include a full UI redesign intended to be pleasant to use across mouse and gamepad without losing any depth. There's also a "refresh" of the game's starting town, a pile of new achievements, improved effects, narrative tweaks, and bug fixes throughout the game. The devs are also "preparing the game architecture so we can properly handle big meaty updates post-launch."
Which, of course, means that post-launch updates are planned, including "major content and system releases. How many exactly depends on the financial realities of sales, but no matter what, we have two big DLCs planned already. We honestly don’t know yet if they’ll be paid purchases or free upgrades, but we’re thinking about the right approach."
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