Nine Dots Studio has announced that Outward 2 will no longer launch into Early Access on July 7 as planned. The hardcore survival RPG, a sequel to 2019’s Outward set in the unforgiving world of Aurai, is now targeting a 2027 release, with more specific timing to be shared later. The studio delivered the news through a statement from CEO and creative director Guillaume Boucher-Vidal.
Boucher-Vidal said that stubbornly sticking to the original plan risked delivering something that wouldn’t meet players’ expectations, pointing to feedback from fans who wanted the game to spend more time in development. He framed the entire point of a playtest as listening to that feedback, and said the team wants a stark enough jump in quality between the current playtest and the eventual Early Access launch to earn players’ trust. The benchmark they kept measuring against, he said, was whether the game would be worth charging money for in a few weeks.
He also apologized directly to fans, acknowledging that some of the studio’s most dedicated players had planned their summer break around the July 7 date. Boucher-Vidal closed by putting the delay in gaming terms, calling it “game development’s equivalent of a defeat scenario,” a nod to Outward’s own mechanic where losing a fight doesn’t end your run but drops you somewhere new to deal with the fallout. The team, he said, will come back better prepared.
