"It’s been nice to rest on our laurels for just a moment and recuperate from a wonderful, overwhelming, exciting and successful time."
Hello everyone! It’s nice to be here again, writing a post for you all. It’s been almost a month since Before We Leave launched on Steam, and we’ve been enjoying working at a slightly less frenzied pace while reflecting on the journey we’ve taken with Before We Leave.
Celebrating our Steam launch
Since our initial launch on EGS a year ago, so much work and anticipation led up to our Steam launch. It’s been nice to rest on our laurels for just a moment and recuperate from a wonderful, overwhelming, exciting and successful time.
On launch day we were awake before the majority of Kiwis, vibrating with nervous energy and excitement. We stared at our Steam page with anticipation and watched early reviews trickle in, and did our best to answer questions in the forums. Sam used some of his nervous energy to make flatpack furniture, naturally.
A couple of hours after the game went live, we surpassed the sales for our biggest ever day when we first launched on EGS last year. And to our surprise, the figures kept climbing - so much so that we’re comfortable with calling our Steam launch successful.
I feel that my words here are way too calm; it implies that we were all very measured and reasonable about this - trust me, we were not! There was exclamations, disbelief, all interspersed with comments about how surreal everything felt. We were also absolutely exhausted! By lunchtime, we were all half-asleep and decided to begin our weekend. I'm not sure how typical it is for developers to recognise their own exhaustion and take care of themselves on a launch day, but I'm glad that we did. Games are important, but so is physical and mental well-being.
Patches, Content Updates, and New Platforms
However, just because we’ve had a successful Steam launch, that’s not to say we don’t have work to do on the game! More patches are coming (we’ve already shipped two since Steam launch), as well as our 8th content update that focuses on giving players tools to customising certain elements of Before We Leave, such as the planets.
A MacOS port is also in the works, and Steam players can stream Before We Leave through GeForce NOW (EGS players, you’ll be able to play through GeForce NOW soon too).
We've also recently revised our Roadmap for 2021, too! Check it out -
Special Thanks
I'd like to take a moment to say a big thank you to a few very important teams and people who helped bring Before We Leave to Steam;
- The team at Vicarious PR for their enormous help and fantastic PR and Marketing work
- Team17 for their support and expertise; our Steam launch wouldn't have been nearly as impactful without them!
- Our NZ Game developer whānau; thank you all tremendously for your belief in Before We Leave and in us, too
- Our wonderful, worldwide community of players who are always willing to lend us their encouragement, thoughts and feedback to make Before We Leave even better!
- To our families and partners; Maia, John, Isaac, little Freddie, Amelia and Mark - thank you all for your love, support and patience <3
Okay, that's it for now! Thanks for reading - I'm looking forward to bringing you all another update in a month.
