Why Early Access?

“Empyrean Defense is already fully playable, but there is significant depth in balance, progression, and long term strategy that benefits greatly from player feedback. Early Access allows us to refine unit balance, mission difficulty, site interactions, economy pacing, and overall campaign flow using player feedback while continuing to expand the game.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Empyrean Defense is planned to remain in Early Access for approximately 6-12 months. This timeframe allows us to add new missions, refine balance, introduce new skills, abilities, and sites, and polish the full campaign experience based on player feedback.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“The full version of Empyrean Defense will feature additional campaign missions, enemy types, and more player abilities, skills, and sites to unlock. We also plan to continue refining balance, adding quality-of-life improvements, and polishing visuals and presentation. Compared to Early Access, the full release is intended to offer a longer campaign with more unlocks, build choices, and mission variety from start to finish.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The Early Access version includes the core gameplay experience, covering the opening regions of the campaign, a variety of enemy types, multiple player sites and abilities, and all essential systems such as power management, economy, upgrades, inventory, and progression. The game is fully playable and stable, but still in active development, with ongoing work focused on additional content, balance tuning, visual polish, and quality-of-life improvements.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“We plan to gradually increase the price as new content, features, and improvements are added throughout Early Access.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“Community feedback plays a direct role in Empyrean Defense’s Early Access development. Player input helps shape balance changes, mission difficulty, site interactions, progression pacing, and quality-of-life improvements throughout development.

We actively gather feedback through:

- Weekly patch and update notes on Steam, where changes and adjustments are documented
- An ongoing Playtest, allowing players to try updates early and provide feedback before wider release
- Bug reports and suggestion forms, used to track issues and feature requests
- A public game wiki, which documents systems, updates, and known changes
- A Discord server for discussion, feedback, and direct communication with the developer

Community feedback is reviewed regularly and helps prioritize balance adjustments, identify usability issues, and guide future improvements and content additions. Throughout Early Access, player feedback will play a meaningful role in refining existing systems and influencing which features receive further development.”