Full STEAM ahead...into Early Access.

I often get asked, "when is your game going to be ready?" And with a name like Ready Or Not, the question, AND answer, can lead to some interesting memes, especially since we have been developing the game for over 5 years.

The short answer is “It depends.” Throughout a typical development project, a video game maker may provide opportunities for interested parties to play early-stage versions of their game – called alphas. In this sense, Ready Or Not alphas have been available to play for over two years. Granted, some of our alpha content was mediocre. However, as we rolled into December 2021, we released a large alpha update with various levels and play modes which has proven to be popular with our growing supporter base. The alpha update has been so popular in fact, that it has received lots of positive attention from some big-name YouTubers and Twitch Streamers, which in turn has led us to run out of alpha access STEAM keys.

?What is STEAM you ask?

It is like a combination of Meta (Facebook) and Amazon, but for video games. It is the most popular video game marketplace in the world. To give you a sense of scale, Steam has over 120 million monthly active users who logged over 30 billion hours of play-time in 2020.

While Steam doesn’t allow small developers like VOID Interactive to pre-sell games on their platform, they do allow us to have our game hosted in their library and provide us with a limited amount of access keys for testing. Players who were interested in supporting Ready Or Not, were able to Purchase a Supporter package on our own website and receive a number of perks, including access to alphas – but we just ran out of these alpha access keys. After three rounds, Steam says we can't have more test keys, but they invite us to make our game live on Steam in Early Access mode, giving us the ability to generate more keys and also making the game available for sale on Steam directly.

Since we absolutely depend on pre-sale income to continue developing Ready or Not, we have decided to go live on Steam Early Access?before the end of this year.

Why have we been so hesitant to go live on Steam?

Simply put, while Steam is an excellent platform for indie developers, it is also a very crowded marketplace, with tens of thousands of titles all competing for limited attention. To really stand out on Steam, we believe that we have a responsibility to deliver a solid product that speaks for itself. We did not want to risk launching a game that we felt wasn't at least up to snuff for our audience. However, under present circumstances, and with the very positive reception to our latest game update, we feel that the best course of action is to transition to Steam Early Access so that we can resume providing Supporter Packages to our backers and secure the resources necessary to continue the game's development. This will also allow Steam's large audience to have the opportunity to experience Ready or Not sooner than they would have otherwise.

Many AAA Studios have incredibly deep pockets and spend tens of millions developing their games, a luxury that VOID Interactive does not have. We live and die by the support of our community, and we are extremely grateful for those that have followed and continue to follow us on this journey.

So, is the game ready?

No…and Yes. The build that will be available soon is still an incomplete version of the game. It will still have bugs and quirks and will require lots of additional content before we deem it ready for full release. But it is currently playable and fun, with some Supporters logging in north of 40 hours of play-time in just the last 7 days. Because of our Supporters and with your help, we will continue to push Ready or Not, adding more content (new maps, missions, characters, weapons, etc.), and further refining it to get it up to the standard that our players deserve. We ultimately want players to be able to turn the lights out, crank up the volume, and be immersed in the action – bringing order to chaos.