A new game called Outer Wilds is moving towards its big finish and a release, but those who helped fund the game were recently met with news that the PC version will be a timed exclusive on the Epic Games Store. The news is surprising to a degree, though not entirely so considering how many other games are taking a similar route and signing on with Epic Games, but it’s a decision that’s left some of its backers feeling a bit frustrated if they were expecting a Steam key at launch.
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Not to be confused with The Outer Worlds which has a very similar name and is also coincidently an Epic Games Store exclusive, Outer Wilds is a crowdfunded game from Mobius Digital which has exceeded its goal of $125,000 on Fig. The game was originally expected to be out years ago and would be released for Steam, a natural choice seeing how the Epic Games Store didn’t yet exist. That’s now changed according to a more recent update from the developer that announced the decision and preemptively told backers that their comments are being heard.
“Outer Wilds will first be released on XBox One and on PC via the Epic Games Store, with additional platforms coming later,” Mobius Digital’s update said. “Rest assured that we read all of your comments and our goal is to bring the game to your preferred platform as quickly as possible. We will keep you up to date with the latest info here.”
The reasoning behind the deal with Epic Games is similar to what other publishers and developers have said in the past. There’s mention of “helpful partnerships” with Epic as well as others like Annapurna Interactive and Xbox that help Mobius Digital “to make the game better and more accessible for everyone who will play it.”
There are only a few comments on the backer page where the update was dropped, but none of them are especially positive. Some backers lamented the fact that the game still doesn’t have a release date while other comments were hinged on the Epic Games Store exclusivity.
If other exclusivity deals are any indication, it’ll come Steam eventually, so backers will likely get their key eventually. It just doesn’t look like that’ll happen at launch.
Thanks, Eurogamer.
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