by theygamesAfter a troubled launch, Bellwright developer Donkey Crew has thanked players for their support so far, saying it will work to deliver on the potential of the new medieval RPG and survival game. It also asks whether the community would prefer to know about features planned for the future, citing a reluctance to overpromise.
“12 days after release, over 150,000 of you have decided that Bellwright is a game worthy of your time and money, and it’s growing steadily every day,” Donkey Crew writes. “It is hard to explain how much this means to us.” The developer has been updating the medieval game almost every day since launch, adding new features and fixing bugs and other performance problems. Since early launch issues saw its initial rating tumble, Bellwright Steam reviews have made a recovery and now sit at a 77% user score.
“Releasing a game to you, the player, is terrifying. Really, genuinely terrifying,” it continues. “After years of work there is always the fear that you completely missed the mark, or – possibly worse – that you graced the mark but missed anyway. Up to release, there is a constant lingering anxiety that we missed some minor detail that could have been fixed if spotted early enough.”
“You have taken away the anxiety and replaced it with motivation, encouragement and even trust. We understand what this means, and we will not disappoint you.” It admits that the current offering, while pretty and full of interesting ideas, is fairly shallow so far – a sentiment echoed in our own Bellwright early access impressions.
“The message is clear: Bellwright is ambitious and unique, but it’s also early, raw, and needs more work. And work we will.” Donkey Crew also thanks the game’s community for being “friendly, respectful, and helping each other out.” It then asks players for feedback on one specific issue – whether it should reveal its future update plans ahead of time, or keep them as a surprise for now.
“We have been somewhat reluctant to reveal what is planned for the future,” the developer explains. “This was a very deliberate decision: we wanted to avoid hyping you up about features that do not exist yet in the game. We feel very strongly that you should only buy Bellwright if you feel it is in a worthy state right now.”
“On the other hand, we get asked more and more often to share where we’re headed.” It says the team currently has “a couple of features in the prototype stage that we could consider previewing,” and asks players to share their thoughts on whether you’d prefer to get a sneak peek of what’s to come, or whether you’d rather not hear about upcoming things until they’re ready to go.
If you’re in that group currently holding off on Bellwright for now and are looking for more of the best survival games, or perhaps the best RPGs out now, we’ve got plenty to choose from.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.