News
Schedules, and a map that remembered too much
The August patch fixes five reported problems, four of them about a character standing where they should not be.
The studio restructures
ZA/UM announced a restructuring in a public statement, two months after release.
The inventory learns to show its working
Voice work continues, the journal stops blanking, and equipping becomes an arithmetic you can read.
Mid-July build
Two more speaking parts finish their voice work, the journal stops going blank, and the inventory learns to explain a stat.
The handheld build
How the game was tuned for a handheld: a different renderer, an unusual resolution, and a font that scales.
Devcast six: casting the script
The sixth developer podcast is about turning a very large script into recorded performance.
Status effects learn to explain themselves
A blocked questline opens, duplicate papers stop appearing, and hovering a status effect finally says what it does.
The first sale
A month after release the game was discounted for the first time, with a deeper cut for owners of the studio's earlier RPG.
The soundscape write-up
The audio director on treating music and sound design as one discipline, and on two gameplay states that want opposite things from it.
The skills get their voices
All fifteen skills are voiced, the white-check list becomes scrollable, and a language toggle lands on one key.
A new Chinese title face, and a fairer opening
The stylised Simplified Chinese title font is replaced for legibility, and the earliest active checks are rebalanced.
Reviews trailer
Three weeks after release the studio cut a trailer from the critical reception.
Second patch: the questlines come unstuck
Ten reported blockers cleared, an unlimited-money route closed, and dialogue gains number keys.
Second post-launch build
Blocked questlines open, an infinite-money route closes, and dialogue gets number keys.
First patch: one week in
The first repair build after release, and the one that taught the map menu to keep a schedule.
First post-launch build
The map menu learns to list what you have found, and to say when it opens.
The companion extension
A stream extension that puts the character sheet, journal and map in front of viewers, and lets them vote on dialogue.
Release day
The game arrives on PC with English voice, five text languages and eight more promised.
Release build
What the game shipped with on the day it left the studio: five text languages, English voice, and the promise of eight more.
The first reviews appear
Two days before release the first verdicts on the game were published.
Strong drama, long shadow
A launch review calls the spy drama solid and says the comparison never quite lifts.
Listed among the week's releases
A week-ahead column places the game in the run of PC releases it launched beside.
Reviewed as a second game
A launch review reads the game through the question every follow-up gets asked.
The Objective and the Subjective
The design write-up that names the game's two visual layers, and explains the journal and the inventory as objects a person keeps.
Showcase round-up
Four segments in sixteen minutes: a music video, a clothing line, a gameplay deep dive, and a tabletop one-shot.
The showcase, covered
Reports on the sixteen-minute showcase and the four things it presented at once.
Showcase live
The showcase went out at the announced hour.
Showcase announced
A showcase is set for the following day, a week before release.
The three major powers
The world sketch: a communist megastate, a techno-fascist empire selling pop music, and a bank with no territory.
The overview trailer, covered
Reports on the overview trailer, ten days out from release.
Features trailer
Two weeks out, the trailer that names the three systems: skills, conditioning and dramatic encounters.
Meet your skills
The fifteen badges introduced one at a time, five to each of the three faculties.
The badges redrawn
All fifteen skill badges were redesigned after demo feedback, on a lineage of scouting patches and pioneer pins.
Devcast: where gameplay meets narrative
A developer podcast on the seam between systems and writing, three weeks before release.
The friends you left to die
The six members of the old network, introduced by cryptonym a month before release.
The Chinese demo
The first localised demo, in Simplified Chinese, carrying a preview of conditioning the other demo held back.
Forty-eight hours left
Two days' notice before the demo came down.
The date is set
Reports name 21 May, three PC storefronts, handheld verification at launch, and a console version later in the year.
Devcast from the conference floor
The developer podcast recorded on the road, with two writers taking audience questions.
Not another cop game
A principal writer says the early plot sat closer to police stories, and that the team moved away on purpose.
The politics are optional
A pre-release piece on the writing team's leanings, and on the game not requiring the player to share them.
The demo is extended
The festival demo stays up four more weeks, to 13 April.
Shown at Day of the Devs
The demo was playable at a public showcase in San Francisco.
Devcast three: the producers
The developer podcast on what producers actually do, recorded while the festival demo was live.
The demo goes live
The festival demo opens with the first few hours of the game, and two systems deliberately held back.
The emergency broadcast
A staged broadcast handing out early demo keys, four days before the demo opened.
The first nineteen minutes
An unbroken run of the game's opening, released five days before the demo.
A demo is announced
A free, time-limited demo is set for the festival: two quests, side stories, and a tailored opening.
Devcast two: writing as a team
The narrative director and a writer on the problem of many hands on one script.
IMPRINT begins
The first developer podcast, on art direction and character design, five months before release.