You’d be forgiven for having completely forgotten about Identity, the ambitious life of crime simulation MMO that’s made some big promises but ultimately saw development languish; the last time we checked in was in 2020, which saw things effectively grind to a halt in terms of new updates save for a town center module’s release in 2018.
The game’s community manager has suddenly resurfaced with a Discord message that was shared on the game’s forums to offer up several explanations and updates. According to the post, the developers at Asylum Entertainment have been working on several side projects in order to pay the bills and earn funding for the development of Identity, but now some new cash is apparently on the horizon, and the studio will do what it can to continue to rake in some additional funding.
To that point, Asylum will be taking the game off Steam, and the team is committed to not asking for any more player funding until it has something playable to show for it. “You guys have paid enough. In fact I will say right now that you shouldn’t make purchases until we post more updates; not because it’ll be unrealized but because after all these delays it makes sense to me that we need to prove ourselves again,” reads part of the post.
On the subject of Identity’s development, there is apparently a lot to report on that front: The game has moved to Unreal Engine 5 and has thus been rebuilt from the ground up, and internal testing has already allowed for the potential of up to 400 players in a single area. This effectively reads like Asylum is dropping its SpatialOS integration, which comes as no surprise as Spatial developer Improbable has effectively decided to let the engine die as it chases the metaverse and crypto dragon.
Incidentally, release of the title will no longer be in modules but will be a full product, with vehicles, weapons, and an open world. The devs are also looking to use their own launcher instead of using Steam. Information on when releases will come isn’t specified, but the post promises to offer more communication as progress on the project is made.
