‘We Happy Few’ Early Access Suspended, Release Date Pushed Back

“We Happy Few” won’t be making it to its April 13 release date. Developer Compulsion Games has apparently decided that the anticipated indie survival and exploration video game is still not ready, so the game’s release has been pushed back.

Late last week, “We Happy Few” developers took to YouTube to update the game’s fans about its progress. Unfortunately, there’s bit of a bad news in the video update for it revealed that the release of the game has been pushed back by a couple of months. The developers also revealed in the same update that the “We Happy Face” Early Access program will be suspended starting early next month.

According to the team, they realized after playing through the game that the beginning did not really match their expectations. “The game didn’t start as well as it should. So we went back to the drawing board and made a couple of big decisions: we brought forward a number of story moments, to get into the action faster, and also rebuilt the whole first island for Arthur,” the developers explained.

Given the changes they intend to make, Compulsion needs more time before it could officially launch the game. The developer said that “We Happy Few” is now slated for release in the summer, without giving a specific date. Engadget says that though the wait for the official release has been extended, the delay will be worth it once players get a “better game in exchange.”

Meanwhile, Compulsion is also delaying the release of “We Happy Few,” so it could take the necessary steps to address the issue with the game’s price hike last year. It can be noted that right after Compulsion’s decision to partner with Gearbox to make the latter the game’s publisher, the game’s price jumped from $29.99 to $50.99.

Because of the price hike issue, Compulsion has now decided to suspend the “We Happy Few” Early Access program. “We find ourselves caught between Early Access (where it’s important to have a price that reflects the current game) and the eventual release of the full game with increased scope (which we believe reflects a traditional retail game). We had anticipated that Steam players would be okay with pre-purchase still granting early access, but since we won’t be offering any additional early access updates beyond August’s ‘Life in Technicolour,’ we think having this labeled Early Access and charging the price of a larger game caused more confusion than we had hoped,” the developers explained in a Steam blog post.

Starting on Feb. 1, the buy button on the game’s Steam page will be disabled. The developers said that they don’t want to confuse more interested players. They will only re-enable the option once the release of “We Happy Few” draws near. “[We] will re-enable the buy button once we’re closer to launch when more info and materials on the game will have been released, giving players more clarity on what they can expect in the full version of ‘We Happy Few.’”

Eurogamer has also learned directly from Compulsion that it is refunding players. The developer feels that it is no longer appropriate to position the game as an Early Access title because the last version was released in August 2017 and it would take some time until the full version arrives. Therefore, Compulsion is refunding all Steam buyers “past and present, regardless of playtime” to ensure that everyone is satisfied with their purchase.

“We Happy Few” is a 1960s-inspired dystopian survival game that was first revealed in 2015. It entered Early Access in 2016 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. It is now scheduled for release on PC, PS4 and Xbox One sometime this summer.