Witchfire goes open world, delayed to 2023

Witchfire, the upcoming rogue-lite FPS game from The Astronauts, has had its initial release pushed back from Q4 2022 to early 2023.

Speaking in a blog post, creative director Adrian Chmielarz explained that the team has made the decision to switch from an arena style roguelike gameplay model to a semi-open world style.

Chmielarz said: "We have redesigned the core experience of the game. Witchfire is still a rogue-lite dark fantasy first person shooter. In theory, we had the best of both worlds: barriers that served the rogue-lite gameplay while being kind of invisible. A couple of months ago though, I realized I hated the barriers."

He went on to express that he felt the beauty of the game's open-world regions was underutilised in the arena style system, but that making the switch had been a larger challenge than anticipated. This was mostly due to the team working to strike the right balance in terms of enemy spawn and aggression mechanics.

The Astronauts seem confident they're back on track for something good now, however, and are confident in this decision. Summing up, Chmielarz said:

"Expect something nice in a week or two. Let's call it Witchfire Halloween Week. It won't be any gameplay footage or stream or such, but if you are interested in the story and the world and great 2D art, it's going to be a treat."