Phew. Here we are.
After nearly a year in Early Access, ten major updates, more bugs than we care to count, quite a few systems torn apart and rebuilt, one new game title, and probably far too much chocolate and coffee, Project Afterfall has reached Gold.
When we first launched into Early Access, we knew there was still work ahead of us. The beginning was a bit of a bump. Some parts of the game simply weren’t where we wanted them to be yet, and, more importantly, you told us the same thing. So rather than trying to stubbornly stick to the original plan, we strapped in and decided to push things as far as our tiny team (we sadly had to lose almost half) possibly could.
And push we did.
Over roughly eleven months of Early Access, we released ten major updates including the Gold. Some were focused on a particular system, some added large chunks of new content, and some ended up changing parts of the game far more dramatically than we had originally expected. So, before we send the Project out into the Wastelands for real, we thought we’d look back at how we got here.
Update 1: Meta Progression
One of the first things we tackled was the feeling that every run should matter, even the unsuccessful ones.
Update 1 introduced the Meta Progression system and Destiny Points, allowing progress from one playthrough to influence the next. We also expanded the main story, added new city events, more character interactions and new abilities, while improving research and equipment progression.
In hindsight, this update set the tone for Early Access pretty well: add something substantial, listen, adjust, repeat.
Update 2: The World Gets Bigger
Then we literally made the world bigger.
The fourth map ring opened up, bringing tougher enemies and new locations, while Outposts introduced resource extraction and fast travel across the Wastelands. The first version of the minimap also arrived, alongside thirteen new POIs and further difficulty customisation.
Exploration had always been one of the pillars of the game, so this was our first major attempt to make travelling further from the Project feel both more rewarding and more meaningful.
Update 3: City Renovations
Next, we turned our attention back home.
The Project was supposed to be the heart of the game, but its systems weren’t yet pulling their weight. So we started rebuilding them.
Population became much more important, influencing things such as garrison size and expedition morale. Buildings were redesigned around clearer Domain identities, construction changed, the Council gained seasonal elections, recruitment was adjusted and various city systems were tied more directly into the wider game.
This was also one of the points where we really began looking at systems not as isolated mechanics, but as parts of one larger survival loop.
Update 4: Time for Some Therapy
Apparently surviving the apocalypse wasn’t stressful enough, so we added Morale.
Update 4 introduced both personal and group Morale and substantially reworked Food, tying the two systems together. We also expanded crafting and resource information, added a new combat tutorial, improved map readability and continued balancing the early game.
More importantly for our story-minded players, this update finally brought in the last part of the main storyline, including the final boss and additional main-quest paths.
The Project now had something approaching its complete narrative spine.
Update 5: Story Time
After several system-heavy updates, we gave ourselves an excuse to do what we perhaps enjoy a little too much: write more stories.
By this point, the game’s event bundle had reached roughly 200,000 words, and Update 5 pushed it further. Existing locations received new paths, choices and consequences, while Svetlana and Mouselav gained new personal stories. We also added new Project events, including street racing and a potentially rather inconvenient meteor shower.
We also adjusted POI distribution so runs would provide more variety and fewer repeats.
Essentially, if you thought you’d already seen everything in a location, we wanted to give you a reason to think again.
Update 6: Reshaping the Alloys
Then we threw the Alloys back into the smelting oven.
All seven Alloy races received completely new character art, giving the player characters much more visual variety and personality.
But we couldn’t leave it at just a makeover. Zenobius, Azure and Leon also received new personal questlines, expanding their stories and giving players more opportunities to shape who those companions ultimately become.
This was the beginning of a much broader visual pass that continued all the way into Gold.
Update 7: Co-op Playtesting
And then things got dangerous.
We opened a dedicated test branch for co-op.
For the first time, two players could take control of the Twin Alloys together, travelling as one group or splitting up to explore the Wastelands independently.
It was exciting. It was also, unsurprisingly, very good at breaking things.
A lot of that month’s work happened behind the scenes because adding co-op exposed assumptions in systems that had previously worked perfectly well in single-player. But that’s precisely why we wanted to test it properly before release.
Alongside co-op testing, we also continued improving Alloy art, character creation, the ending screen and combat clarity.
Update 8: Project Afterfall Initialised
This was the big one. First, Project Thea became Project Afterfall.
As development progressed, we felt the original working title no longer represented what the game had become. This wasn’t simply another Thea game in a familiar age. It was a story about what came after the Fall, about the Project itself and about this strange civilisation attempting to survive among the ruins.
So the new name felt like a much better fit for the journey we’d actually made.
Update 8 also brought co-op into the main game, completely redesigned city defence, reworked numerous buildings and added full English VO for the A.I. throughout the main storyline.
Hearing our eternally helpful, completely trustworthy A.I. actually speak for the first time was a particularly strange milestone for us.
Update 9: The Final Early Access Update
With release getting close, there was still one major system we weren’t satisfied with: card combat. So naturally, we reworked it. Again.
Cards and decks were redesigned, new effects and targeting rules were introduced, and the overall combat system was simplified and expanded at the same time. We also added 41 Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud Saves, graphics quality settings, improved quest tracking and another sizeable batch of quality-of-life changes and fixes.
At this point, our Early Access checklist was getting considerably shorter.
Which left only…
Gold
The Gold build is our final big polish pass before release.
We’ve added more VO across the game, more companion and personal events, additional Alloy heads and completely new Dwarborg character art.
The introduction and tutorial have been refreshed, with the option to skip the tutorial entirely. We’ve added further difficulty customisation, improved the minimap, Camp Actions and city market, continued balancing combat and progression, and added a large collection of quality-of-life improvements.
Co-op has received another substantial stability pass, and we’ve continued fixing issues across combat, saves, events, localisation and UI.
And, of course, Project Afterfall now supports GOG too.
So… In summary, what changed?
As my lecturer used to say, you read the intro then conclusion and it should give you the whole story, so let’s just quickly sum up what we changed in the year:
Exploration changed.
The Project and its buildings changed.
Population, Food and Morale changed.
Combat changed.
City defence changed.
Progression changed.
Character creation changed.
The tutorial changed.
We added co-op.
We improved the character art, added new art altogether, introduced VO, expanded companion stories and added a lot more narrative content throughout the world.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, Project Thea became Project Afterfall.
None of this happened in isolation. Early Access gave us eleven months of watching how people actually played the game, reading reports, arguing over feedback, testing ideas, breaking things, fixing those things, occasionally breaking different things while fixing the first things, and steadily shaping the game into something we’re much happier with.
So, genuinely, thank you to everyone who played during Early Access. Whether you sent us detailed reports, posted suggestions, complained about something that annoyed you, found a spectacular bug, or simply played the game and told us what you thought, you helped shape what Project Afterfall became.
Now there isn’t much left for us to do except release it.
How that goes is in the hands of the Gods of Thea now.
But whatever they decide, we hope you’ll enjoy our final Gold build.
See you in the Wastelands.
