Indie real-time strategy game A Year of Rain has put their development on hold for the foreseeable future, likely signaling the end of development.
The bad news was revealed in an announcement on the game's Steam Community page. Here are some highlights:
We now are able to give you insight on our likely last big Update for A Year of Rain. We are sorry for the time of silence, though we wanted to be completely sure, that everything will work out as we decided on. This means as well, that the Update will already hit in the next 2 days. Our goal from the start was to show our own individual passion and love for the RTS genre, and simultaneously gain new experiences in the world of competitive titles.
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Unfortunately, even when this was more than we ever could have asked for on the emotional, personal side – the low player base that you have witnessed yourselves hurts us substantially - We reached no more than 5000 players worldwide until today. We are deeply sorry for everyone who felt, or will feel, let down by us and the path we had to choose, considering we are an independent studio with limited resources.
The developers subsequently announced that they are putting A Year of Rain development "on hold" and working to minimize recurring costs for the game, although it's not all bad news — they're also aiming to preserve as much as they can for existing players.
A Year of Rain Devs Aim To Preserve the Game
While the development hold is certainly disappointed for real-time strategy fans, the hold on development doesn't mean that the game is going away forever. The developers are taking several steps to ensure that the game can still be played by current and future customers.
The game's official servers are going to be replaced with a peer-to-peer system. This means that you'll still be able to play by hosting games even after the official servers shut down.
A consequence of this shift means that the game's leaderboards and player stats will disappear, but there's also an upside: all portraits and titles will be automatically unlocked.
The changes made today mark yet another revision to development plans for A Year of Rain; a previous change took place in December of last year, ultimately ending up where we are today.
The devs have detailed all of the features and changes in the latest patch notes. If this game piques your interest, you can pick it up on Steam for $24.99 or your regional equivalent.
What do you think of A Year of Rain putting active development on hold? Did you enjoy the game or did it still need a lot of work? Let us know in the comments below!
