Fireblade Software released a new video for Abandon Ship, along with post over on their official website to announce that the game’s Early Access release has been delayed into early 2018.

Fireblade’s lead designer, Gary Burchell, explained in the post that while they had originally planned to get the Early Access version of Abandon Ship out before the end of 2017, things changed due to the game’s complexity, and now it’s pushed back into 2018. Burchell wrote in the update post…

“Abandon Ship is a very systems-driven game, which is a fantastic fit for Early Access. We’re really looking forward to getting feedback and balancing the game with our community.

 

“We’re committed to delivering an extremely high-quality experience, and to ensuring that even our initial release is as feature-complete and polished as possible. So far, the response from our play-testers has been exceptionally positive, but why stop there? With a little extra time, we can make the game even better.”

Fans who may have been really looking forward to the game are likely disappointed that the wait time has been extended. To make up for it they released a new 30 minute developer video featuring plenty of unedited gameplay so you can see exactly how far along they’ve come with the game. You can check it out below.

The half hour video is from the alpha build of the game. When Abandon Ship does make its way to Steam there are plans to keep it in Early Access between nine and 12 months. So that means it won’t be officially launching until sometime in 2019.

Nevertheless, in the early goings of the video we get a look at some of the turn-based style combat against another ship on fairly calm seas.

We also see some Cthulhu-style henchmen from the cult’s ship make an attempt to board and damage the player’s crew. Nevertheless, the Cthulhu squid-men are dispatched rather easily from the crew.

In the video he explains that the port they attempted to land was controlled by the Cthulhu-style cult, so he ends up leaving and venturing around to the northwest part of the map.

The developer walkthrough feels more like a gameplay tutorial than an early alpha build. You would probably completely forget that the game is still in development given the level of polish on display.

You can keep track of development by visiting the official website or by keeping an eye on the Early Access page.