Compulsion Games delayed its upcoming dystopian survival title We Happy Few. Originally slated for April 13, the game will now launch sometime this summer, the studio announced in a production update on its site.
Any time a game goes from a firm release date to an undetermined day in a fairly wide window, fans would be forgiven if they worried about the state of the game. But Compulsion Games, in a move seldom seen throughout the industry, revealed the exact reason for the delay, and it doesn’t sound like there is much reason to fret.
In a video, Compulsion Games Chief Operating Officer Sam Abbott and studio head Guillaume Provost claimed that when reviewing the game themselves, they noticed that the early story content didn’t seem to fit as intended. Specifically, the team wants to go back and take another stab at protagonist Arthur Hastings’ first two hours of story to better connect with the game’s funny and weird moments. It sounds like a tone issue in the writing, not an overarching gameplay problem.
Arthur, one of three playable characters in the game, also happens to be the only character that users have had the opportunity to try out since the game entered Early Access on Steam in summer 2016. We don’t even know the other two main characters’ identities at this point, and Compulsion Games indirectly addressed that in the update as well.
Work on all of the game’s content has finished, but much of the content has never been touched by Early Access players. Anyone who purchased the game early can receive a full refund on Steam, no matter the amount of time put into the game. Considering the game currently costs $51 on Steam, it’s understandable if those playing it have been upset with the rather limited scope of the content available.
The game will remain in Early Access until its official launch, but at the end of January, it will be removed from sale on Steam. Compulsion claimed that the game will be reactivated for purchases closer to launch after more of the game’s content has been revealed.
We Happy Few takes place in the 1960s in an alternate timeline. To forget their actions in World War II, the people of Wellington Wells begin taking a hallucinogen dubbed Joy. The drug makes the population endlessly happy, but its side effects include a lack of morality and susceptibility to manipulation. Each of the three protagonists stops taking Joy in order to escape the city.
We Happy Few launches on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC this summer.
