Highly Anticipated New Game Accidentally Released Early (And They Decided to Roll With It)

These days, Early Access is a common pre-order perk for many games. Players who lock in their purchase early often get a few days to even a few weeks of early playtime. That was the plan for Tempest Rising, a classic real-time strategy game inspired by popular titles like Rise of Nations and Age of Empires. However, due to a snafu with the Steam Early Unlock, the game wound up available to all players who had pre-ordered, regardless of the version they selected. Now, the team has decided to lean into it, making the game available to everyone a full week earlier than originally planned.

Tempest Rising was one of the most popular demos during February’s Steam Next Fest, and was set to come out on April 24th. Initially, Tempest Rising was set to be available early for players who pre-ordered the Deluxe Edition of the game. This one-week period would have started on April 17th and run until the game’s full launch. However, for some reason, the game wound up releasing to everyone who had pre-ordered, meaning far more players than intended were able to play the game. Yesterday, Slipgate Ironworks provided an update via Steam, sharing that they ultimately decided the best way forward was to just go ahead and release the game early – for everyone.

This means that anyone interested in Tempest Rising no longer has to wait until April 24th to play. As of this morning, the game is available on Steam for anyone, even if you didn’t pre-order. Gamers can buy the Standard Edition for $39.99 or grab the Deluxe Edition for $49.99. However, there are a few things to note about how this early drop will impact the original plans for rewards and gameplay.

How the Early Release Will Impact Tempest Rising Bonuses & Gameplay

These purchases will still include the Commander Pack pre-order bonus, so long as you buy before 10 AM ET on the game’s original release date of April 24th. This bonus content includes a special backdrop, unique avatars, and other perks, so it’s a nice incentive to play “early” now that the game is available.

As for players who purchased the Deluxe Edition, obviously the one week of Early Access no longer applies. The Tempest Rising team shared they are working to come up with some in-game bonuses to make up for the loss of this perk for buying the Deluxe Edition. The exact nature of the in-game rewards will be announced at a later date.

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Along with some changes to Deluxe Edition perks, Tempest Rising will have a few missing features due to its early release. Ranked matchmaking and leaderboards were not planned to arrive until the full launch on April 24th. This will still be the case, even though the game is available to everyone now. So, if you’re wondering where matchmaking and leaderboards are, you can look forward to seeing those features arrive in a few days.

So far, the early release appears to be going pretty smoothly for Tempest Rising. Several thousand players are already enjoying the game, with reviews hitting the Very Positive range on Steam despite a few features not being fully available yet. For fans of RTS games, Tempest Rising looks well worth checking out, and you no longer have to wait until next week to do it.

Tempest Rising is available for PC via Steam as of April 18th.