Feels like forever ago, when the Legend of Grimrock II was first announced. Since then, quite a few details have been shared with the public, including confirmation that players will be able to explore the outdoors, along with a lovely WIP feature list and of course, a bunch of technical stuff. But perhaps more importantly, development has entered beta, which means the launch hopefully isn’t too far away!
Do keep in mind, however, that the beta will be closed (as indicated by the title), simply because… well, it worked for them with the first game. As someone who’s done pre-release testing for various developers over the past couple of years, I can understand why they took this route. While open beta may get a lot more feedback, it could also lead to things like untimely leaks and other incidents, which won’t happen if only “a carefully selected group of people” are involved. Or at least, the chance is noticeably smaller.
It’s time to balance all the thousands of gameplay parameters and finetune the gui and optimize the game, and… You get the point! All the features we’ve planned are in and just waiting for some TLC
Along with the whole beta thing, their latest update revealed that “Grimrock 2 is going to be around 25% longer than Grimrock 1 but more testing by us and our betatesters is still needed to confirm this” so I wouldn’t take that number as a solid fact. Besides, given the awesome atmosphere and overall great design of the first game, I’m more interested in the gameplay, than how long the experience is going to last. Were I to choose a specific piece of information to acquire, that is.
One thing is guaranteed though, which is… the iOS port is still happening, now under the care of Juha Pinola (‘coder extraordinaire’, according to Almost Human). Release date? Nope, nothing yet, except for the standard “when it’s done”, which also goes for the sequel. Porting Legend of Grimrock to touch controls is bound to require restructuring and some outside-the-box thinking, after all. I’ll be sure to keep you posted, whenever more is revealed on either front. Until then, you’ll have to settle for the screenshot (above) and the new teaser (below).
(Source: official blog)
