Our Dearest Nomads,

We have to admit this Easter holiday weekend has been the craziest weekend we ever had during the development of Planet Nomads. As you probably know Planet Nomads was supposed to launch tomorrow...

During the past weeks everybody on the team has been working so hard on hitting the release deadline that we somehow lost sight of what's really important - to make Planet Nomads into an exciting and highly enjoyable survival sandbox game that is amusing and joy to play.

Fortunately we do have a burning and passionate community that's been showing signs of us going astray. Even more importantly, the Alpha Nomads voiced their concern about the future of the game, should it release in its current state to the general gaming public.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The reason why you are learning about the delay one day before the intended launch is that for a long time we felt like we had no other choice but to launch. We felt responsible to keep our promise to every Nomad who preordered the game or backed it on Kickstarter. The more we fought this, the more the Alpha Nomads kept pushing back and the more we knew they had been right. The initial panic and heart-squeezes were quickly turned into action. We had one of the hardest decisions to make and then it hit us.

Every Backer and Preorder Nomad Can Play 18th April

We can deliver the current version of the game to every backer through Steam just like we did with the alpha version (and soon the same will be possible on GOG). That way we keep our promise to the people who have been following the development of Planet Nomads and know what the game is and what's it going to be. Kickstarter and Preorder Nomads, you will get a key in your e-mail tomorrow, little after 4 pm Central European Summer time (GMT+2). This marks another stage of the game; one that could be marked as closed-beta. To people looking forward to becoming Nomads themselves we apologize for the inconvenience of waiting a few weeks longer than intended.

Why Is the Launch Delayed Then?

The game deserves to have many of its details to be better. The tiny details that create the first impression and perception of a game. It would be a shame to let Planet Nomads go out without them. We saw what we were able to achieve in the past few weeks and we know a few weeks more will do wonders for Planet Nomads fighting chances.

We are confident Kickstarter and Preorder Nomads realize the game is in an early stage of development and only going to grow and improve from here. You will find the current version reasonably polished, and ripe with potential and things to discover. However, there's a chance somebody seeing Planet Nomads for the first time might not have such understanding. The perception of Early Access titles has changed dramatically over the years and moreover there are users who don't clearly understand what Early Access is about.

We counted on possible negative reviews stemming from misconceptions about Early Access titles to be balanced by ratings from our backers, but alas, with the September 2016 update on Steam, review scores from Steam keys distributed outside the Steam ecosystem (e.g. via Kickstarter) are no longer calculated to the overall rating.

When Is Planet Nomads Early Access Happening?

As mentioned above, a few more weeks will be enough to prepare Planet Nomads for public contesting. We have agreed on May and are now figuring out the exact date. We'll have a series of meetings so that every team member can express what they'd like to add and how much time they need for that. We're then going to match that with the Alpha feedback one more time and make a final decision. On Thursday we'll let everyone know the May date and also the features that are getting a tune-up.

We realize this is a very non-standard situation. We are fully aware of the consequences, but know this has been a carefully weighted decision and one we believe will work best for Planet Nomads and its growing gaming community.

This has been a long and tiresome process, so we'll keep you updated in the upcoming days.

Thank you,
Craneballs