Blood Bowl 3 ditches plans for early access, will run beta instead

rockpapershotgun.com:

Early access is a mixed bag. Sometimes it's an exciting early glimpse, sometimes it feels like supporting a developer or game you care about, and sometimes it can feel more like paying to beta test. That last one won't be a concern with Blood Bowl 3, not anymore. The latest adaptation of Games Workshop's tabletop fantasy bloodsport was headed to early access but now, naw. The developers are focusing on closed beta testing instead, and will simply launch the game in full once it's done.

The launch has already been delayed several times, and been running closed tests for a while. It needs more time, and apparently they no longer think early access is the way to go about that.

"We are still working on features such as the AI, the planification phase, the pathfinding or multiple bugs correction," the Blood Bowl 3 team said in Tuesday's announcement. Maybe some typo correction too?

"As a result, we decided to cancel the PC early access release, to focus on a PC closed beta, leading to a final release on both PC and consoles this year."

The next closed beta test will run January 25th to February 2nd. It'll only be available to people who registered last June or got keys from pre-ordering the board game way back when. Folks who previously had Steam beta keys are in for this latest test too, and the devs plan to "progressively" send out more for folks who registered in June but didn't get one.

Blood Bowl 3 is headed to Steam and the Epic Games Store later this year, made by Cyanide Studio and published by Nacon.