A couple of weeks ago, MOP’s Justin and I expressed heavy skepticism that Wild West Online could ever be ready on schedule this fall. “No way, that’s just not gonna happen, that’s total fantasy,” I believe was our exact phrasing. Last spring, the studio told us it wasn’t running behind, but in September, 612 Games shut down the tech alpha early after just two weekends, saying it would still launch the early access in mid-October. Now it appears that 24-7 early access alpha is being delayed too and won’t begin tomorrow, although the team is still holding tight to October. Here’s the team’s statement from Facebook:
“Over the weekend and today we’ve done company wide playtesting of the build candidate for the early access alpha, and we’ve decided that it just ain’t ready yet. We want the next time you play to be a great time, and right now some critical elements are not up to those standards. What we learned from the community and by observing the activity of streamers and youtubers during Technical Alpha is that people want a game that’s better and more complete, not just early. So we’re not going to release with things that are really not there yet, and madly patch stuff in as it passes muster.”
The studio does say it’s going to take the extra time to “better perfect the new changes” and will reveal more details of the early access launch features “soon.”
