The Kickstarter campaign surpassed its funding goal in 6 hours all the way back in March 2013. It was scheduled for released in December 2014. But in an update to backers this morning, inXile has announced that Torment: Tides of Numenera won’t be released until the first quarter of 2017.
The game might be content complete, but according to the developers it will take around six to nine months before the game is ready to be fully released to the public. InXile implied that part of the delay was down to the time needed for professional localisation, as well as their own general polishing and iteration.
So, we have two paths open to us, a bit of choice and consequence, if you will. Those of you who have been following our updates know we have been hinting towards a late 2016 release, and we could crunch and rush to get the game out around November. But doing so would mean both sacrificing the quality of our localization and would lead to a less polished game for the nearly 100,000 people total who have backed the game. Therefore, in the interests of giving everyone the best experience, we will be releasing Torment in early Q1 2017.
To help with the localisation process, Brian Fargo (inXile’s founder) wrote that the studio was “partnering with a certain publisher to help out on this front”. He didn’t mention which publisher, although I wouldn’t be surprised if Paradox Interactive were involved somehow.
Perhaps as a mea culpa, Fargo also announced that all backers would receive beta access to Torment. “We also know there are many of you who have been waiting to play Torment, and we know from previous experience on Wasteland 2 there’s a huge benefit to getting more feedback on the game,” he wrote.
Some fans have questioned the move, however, arguing that the value of having pledged at a higher tier has now been diluted with beta access being extended to everyone that pledged.
In the interim, an update to the game’s beta has been pushed out adding a variety of optimisations, characters, areas, companions and more. You can find the full list here on the official forums.
Comments
10 responses to “Torment: Tides Of Numenera Gets A Publisher, Drifts Back To 2017”
Those “fans” already had the beta since January. What they are doing is opening up to the remaining backers because the release date has shifted, and because they need more feedback than the original beta backers are able to provide in terms of high volume testing.
I think we can safely say we’re in the annual delay season where games (and consoles apparently) get delayed to the next year.
“Some fans have questioned the move, however, arguing that the value of having pledged at a higher tier has now been diluted with beta access being extended to everyone that pledged.”
this is one of the same reactions that stumped after the total:warhammer preorder bonus became extended for a week. There were some people out there who were actually complaining that ‘non-preorderers’ were getting the preorder bonus. Holy **** this is the epitome of entitlement!
Do people actually believe that more people beta testing something will actually make the game worse? And honestly how the hell can other people “dilute” a singleplayer experiance?
Beta access was only originally provided at higher tiers, and it was never listed as a timed exclusive. So the question is: if inXile were going to make beta access available to everyone, was it really worth pledging more money for the higher tiers?
Well sadly this is an age of kickstarters, where you can ‘donate’ crazy amounts of money and recieve no product at all…
Really I see this argument the same as “Are steam sales fair? I paid more for a game at launch and now months later people are getting it at a reduced price”.
Other people receiving the same products and benefits as you does not diminish the product nor your experience in any way.
Lets be honest, paying for Beta access these days is really just paying for earlier access to the game.. which they got (by 8 months or so)..
I don’t see an issue with opening the Beta up to more backers at this point. Yes, they probably could have noted in the tier that it would be “earlier access to the Beta than other backers”, but if you’re taking part in crowdfunding hopefully you already know “things change”.
True that, kickstarter games are ephemeral beasts until release. At least tides isn’t splitting like broken age or following the sad tragedy that befell nekro :’-(…or was a scam like antsim
If that D2 guest is right and their exclusivity on beta access so far has been about 8 months, it’s pretty hard to imagine they’d have much to complain about. Especially if the release date has been pushed.
God I hope they release on ps4.
Polish is needed tho. Wasteland 2 crashed repeatedly on ps4 and pathfinding with mines was the worst ever.
Honestly, it’s a bit of a relief for me.
I backed the game, and am a big fan of Numenera, but I’d rather a decent game eventually than something unpolished to do the setting proper service. Also, my games platter for this year is full to bursting.
Dont care how long it takes, at least i know its coming and its polished.