The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Developer The Astronauts’ long-awaited spooky shooter Witchfire has been delayed to early 2023 to facilitate a move to open-world gameplay.
Presented in blog post On The Astronauts website, the development team bluntly stated that Witchfire was better thanks to open world changes, but such drastic changes needed extra time.
Players can now tackle the game in almost any order they like, possibly marking a change from Doom-style arena-based combat to a more open style like Fallout 4.
“This feature is currently 95% implemented. It makes the game better. It’s hard to imagine that players didn’t have that freedom before,” says creative director and co-founder Adrian. Chmielarz said.
“You can get trapped by witches here and there, and some doors will be closed until you find the key. It might be too dangerous to enter an area close to the boss before you’re ready, but the world is big. It’s open for exploration in almost any order, and you can go forward or backward as you please.”
Witchfire was previously scheduled to enter Early Access in late 2022 (and remains in Early Access when released in 2023), so it was only a few months behind schedule, but was first revealed in 2023. It was the year 2017.
After nearly five years of silence, Witchfire has been relaunched at Summer Game Fest 2022 with a new gameplay trailer that showcases its dark fantasy setting.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He talks about witchers all day long.
