Polish studio The Astronauts announced Witchfire, a dark fantasy shooter set in a medieval world, around five years ago. Initial updates stated the game would be released at the end of 2022, however the studio has announced that the release has been delayed to early 2023.
The game is undergoing a major redesign that’s changing it from arena-style combat to open-world. In a blog post on The Astronauts’ website, the studio’s co-founder and creative director Adrian Chmielarz announced that despite it only being the second week of Q4, “we are not going to launch to Early Access in Q4 2022. We are now aiming for early 2023.”
Speaking around the decision to delay the game, Chmielarz said that games usually miss their target date because developers “underestimate the time needed to make a good game” but says that the reason for the delay of Witchfire is different.
“We have redesigned the core experience of the game,” he said. “We’ve upgraded combat and exploration from arena style to semi-open world style, and that took time.” Chmielarz is convinced the game would have released on time if it were not for the redesign, so doesn’t want to admit that the team underestimated the time needed for the game’s development.
Comparing the original idea for Witchfire to the likes of Hades and Slay the Spire, where you enter a room, complete a goal and select a direction to continue in, Chmielarz said that the team felt that needed a barrier system in order to block players from leaving arenas, which they began working on. Recently though, Chmielarz says that he realised that he “hated” the barriers, stating that although they made sense, they felt old school, looked “kind of bad” and limited the game’s potential. “I knew I could not stand them anymore,” he said.
