Why Early Access?

“Sacred Fire is an innovative role-playing game experience, modeling how emotions influence our choices. We were fortunate to build a patient and dedicated community over the years and several playtesting rounds, and have really benefited from our public demo. The feedback we received from events such as Steam Next Fest has been invaluable, offering important insights into how the players experience the game so we can make fundamental improvements.

It’s only natural that we’d like to continue with this on a grander scope, so an Early Access release will help us to better understand who our customers are and how they experience the game.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We plan to stay in Early Access approximately till summer 2024. The release of v1.0 will update the game with the third and final act of the story, more character art variety and localization.”

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

“The Early Access version contains character creation and the first two of the three acts of the story, or roughly 70% of the branching content with voice-over.

The full version will contain 1 more act to complete the story, more character and location variety, as well as more ambient sound effects. We also expect the full version to be much better balanced and so even more immersive.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“All of our game mechanics and features are complete. We’ve had 1 round of bug fixing and re-balancing based on external QA reporting. We’ve also implemented voice-over on all scenes, and have completed a significant portion of our planned character and location art.”

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

“We do plan to raise the price when we exit Early Access, but this decision will also factor in feedback and our general sales performance in the meantime.”

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

“Players can report suggestions and bugs via the Steam forums and Discord. Even for our demo at Steam Next Fest this was super helpful and has shaped multiple demo and game updates - we’re always hungry for more feedback!

As player immersion is so important to us, qualitative feedback will also be something we ask for often. Already the community has supported us and helped to improve our tutorial, tooltips, bonuses and penalties, with clearer notifications and prompts. We want players to have a premium experience, so their input during Early Access is critical to achieving that.”