Why Early Access?

“Since its inception, Pirate Souls has been a game created with the input and feedback of its community. Throughout the year's we've shaped the game's development culture around the idea of the community being a direct influence to the game's content, features and balance.

We want to make Pirate Souls the best game we can for the players and so we're ready to present it to a larger audience, giving the possibility for the Steam game community to take an active part in the game's development. Throughout the alpha stages of the game, we've gathered feedback and ideas for features that we're still adding to the game.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“As long as it takes. We take feedback seriously and want to make sure we’re proud of the game. We understand the complexity that goes with releasing an MMORPG title especially with just 2 developers. Because of this, we want to ensure that nothing is rushed and our goals are reached before calling the game a full release.

We will release once your feedback is confirming that the game is ready. Realistically, we hope to get all the features we want for a full version within the next 2 years.”

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

“Here’s our roadmap for features we’d like to introduce, complete and polish:

• Ship navigation system
  
• Ship battle system
  
• Side-activities like Fishing, Mining & Crafting
  
• Automated World Political Systems
  
• World Bosses

Besides this there are currently elements of the game that rely on manual intervention from GMs and Admins to keep running. Eg. the game's role playing political systems and character progression events. We're hoping to automate more of this so it scales better with more players.

Pirate Souls started development based on a codebase that begun development in 2015. Even if it's great for Pirate Souls kind of game, it's still very recent and lack some features that are a most to have a "fully complete game" like advanced player actions logging. We aim to have a polished product that we're proud to call a Version 1.0 before moving out of early access.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“There are 2 factions, 3 professions, 3 specializations/classes to choose from, 6 different soul fruits that give special abilities as well as over 200 items, 100 maps, 80 techniques, 20 unique enemies & 50 quests in the game. A lot of the fun in Pirate Souls comes from player interactions and community. We have active players who have played Pirate Souls alpha and believe that with the release of the beta (Early Access version), it will be in a state where you can enjoy for hundreds of hours if it is the kind of experience you are looking for.”

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

“No, Pirate Souls will be Free-To-Play forever. Since beginning development in 2018, the goal of Pirate Souls was always to create an ethically monetized online game with close to no budget at the time. We pride ourselves in having zero Pay-to-Win features. All items in the Cash Shop will be purely cosmetic with the exception of some Quality of Life Items such as Stat Resets that provide gameplay benefits. However, those are earnable through other means in-game as well.”

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

“Since the release of the alpha version of the game, we've been working on what the players wanted. As a small team of 2 developers, it is hard to individually respond to every suggestion made. That being said, we have an avenue for players to talk directly to the developers, and make a commitment to respond to as many as possible.

In our Discord server, we have a suggestion channel. We let players give their suggestions and then we sit down to respond to them, add tasks to the to-do list and implement ideas that are easily added on the spot. Eg. The Auto Aim Range feature was a player suggestion and it now has a massive impact on the game balance.”