"Coming Soon..."

For no better reason than it just occurred to me it would make a quick post and because everything else I have in mind to write about would take fricken' forever  - and require a ton of research that I'm really not in the mood for right now - here's a list of the unreleased games on my Steam wishlist, along with some brief thoughts and a rough estimate of the chances I'll buy any of them, should they ever become available, something that can't be considered in any way a certainty, if previous experience is anything to go by.

I'm counting them down from the top, which means we're going backwards in time, from the most recently added to the longest-ago, although that just tells you what's been on the list the longest, not how long any of the games might have been in production. It's frightening how long these things take.

Throne and Liberty - I'm guessing everyone's heard of this one. It's "a free-to-play, multi-platform MMORPG", which obviously explains what it's doing on my list. It began development as part of the Lineage franchise but supposedly now stands alone. 

I'm fairly sure I added it because it's going to be published by Amazon, which means it will most likely be easy to access without having to create a whole new set of accounts and passwords, something I find myself increasingly unwilling to bother with these days. I also watched a promo video and it looked pretty, so that probably had something to do with it, too.

The game was in the news recently when the Producer resigned, a fairly unusual event at this stage of production, it has to be said. Whether that will affect the timeline remains to be seen but the game is supposed to arrive "sometime in 2024". Since it's free, I'll almost certainly try it but I have a feeling I won't stay long. 

Chicken Police: Into The Hive - The sequel to Chicken Police: Paint It Red, which I thoroughly enjoyed and wrote about here more than once. I played and posted about the demo to this one, too. Once again, I enjoyed  the humor, the writing and the gameplay but I did feel diminishing returns might be beginning to kick in. 

Still, it seems like a solid sequel. There's no estimated release date other than "Soon". I'll definitely buy it at some point but I'm in no hurry to play the game on release. I'll probably wait for a sale on this one.

Under A Rock - The first game on the list I have no memory of ever seeing before let alone wishlisting. I had to read the description to remind myself that it's "a procedural open-world survival craft game" and even then I couldn't remember it. 

Reading further, I see the set-up is that you play "an early-nineteenth century explorer who has just been stranded in a strange new world, a hidden world that few can travel to (and from!), with a different evolutionary path.", which gives off some definite Nightingale vibes. Graphically, however, it looks much more light-hearted and cartoony. It looks fun, in fact. I still don't remember how I found it but I'm glad I did.

No release date or price yet but it will go into Early Access first. Unless it's unreasonably expensive, I'll most likely give it a try when that happens. 

Once Human - I don't think I need to tell anyone what this is, at least not anyone who visits here regularly. I have cooled down on it a little since I figured out that gameplay will be more repetitive in the mid-high levels than I originally imagined but I don't think that will significantly impact the sheer, exhuberant fun of the whole thing. It's just a real blast to run around shooting at bizarre monsters, exploring abandoned office buildings and shopping malls, beating up animated kitchen appliances and chatting with the weird people who have to try and make some kind of life for themselves among the chaos. 

All of that should provide enough entertainment to keep me playing for a while but if not there's some great base-building to enjoy as well. The estimated release date is Q3 2024. Apple says early August. They just opened registrations for the mobile version and they're already up to 13.5m. I suspect this one is going to go big. I'll likely be there from Day One.

Dungeons of Hintenberg - A gorgeously designed action-adventure RPG that Steam tells me "doesn't look like other things you've played in the past".  It kind of does, though. It reminds me of quite a few adventure games set in mountain villages and small central European towns, where mystery abounds and puzzles must be solved. The action part is new, though.

This one has a solid release date: 18 July 2024. There was also apparently an extended play test that went on for much of May, about which no-one told me. You'd have thought I might have gotten an email, what with having the game on my wishlist. I've missed that chance to try before I buy but luckily there will also be a demo in next month's Next Fest so I'll be sure to give that a go.

If I like what I see, maybe I'll buy it on release. I kinda doubt it, though. Chances are I'll play the demo and then feel like I'm done. That seems to be my pattern.

Schrodinger's Catgirl - Let's be honest. I wishlisted this one for the title. It's genius, isn't it? 

It does look good, though. It's a Point & Click adventure based around a murder in an abandoned manor house, which makes me think of Scooby Doo, although Steam compares it to Disco Elysium. Yeah. I wish!

There's no release date but there is a demo available, which I assume will be in the upcoming Next Fest. I'll play it, post about it and maybe make up my mind about it then. I do have a much better record of converting Point & Click Adventures from demo to wishlist to purchase than any other genre so here's hoping.

Old Skies - Now we're starting to get to the games that have been on the list for a while. I added this one (And the last one.) in 2022. It has a demo, which I played and posted about a while back, when I called it "a great advert for the game and a lot of fun in its own right". Since then I've heard not a word.

It's a Wadjet Eye production, which means I'm fairly confident this will still be in production, not gathering virtual dust after the creators lost interest and moved on to something more lucrative. They could get a move on, though. Once again, a definite will-buy and quite likely on release.

Albert Wilde: Quantum P.I. - Another one wishlisted after I played and posted about the demo. But that seems like a looong time ago. I wasn't over-enthusiastic about it at the time and I did note that it felt like a very early build. 

The developers were still trucking around festivals promoting the game until late last year but I haven't seen anything since then. Honestly, I'd be quite surprised this one ever appears in anything like a finished form and even if it does I don't think I'll be buying it. The moment has passed.

Nighthawks - And finally, the oldest game on the list and quite possibly the one I want to play most of all. Another Wadjet Eye title, this time centered on vampires trying to build a nightclub empire. I mean, seriously, why don't all vampires do that? It seems so obvious...

Once again, Steam thinks this is similar to Disco Elysium and for once it might be right. I will certainly be buying this as soon as someone will take my money but I've been waiting almost three and a half years now and there's still no sign of a release date - or even a demo. Some people really do like to take their time, don't they?

And that's the lot. Roll on Next Fest so I can add a bunch more games I'll probably never buy!