When we first signed with Team 17, I remember thinking there was ages until our planned Early Access launch date…. oh how that time flew by ha. It’s been especially crazy busy since January, with every week seeming to have something going on, W.A.S.D expo, localisation passes, regional testing, playtests, alpha, beta, Gamescom, milestone deliveries and the list goes on.
Marauders at the Opening Night Live show at Gamescom 2022
However, as intense as it is, it’s also incredibly exciting and the game has come on leaps and bounds in that time. If you look back at some of the footage of while we were on FIG, it’s funny you can see how barebones it was but even then you could see the core spark that people seem enjoy coming through. Below is one of the first youtube videos about the game from BigFryTV
We have worked on every area of the game since then, trying to build it out and refine it as much as possible while keeping true to its core design and theme (dieselpunk gritty space pirate). A personal favorite of mine is when we added in more immersion, such as: getting on and off helm/gun turrets, getting into pods, seamlessly going through airlocks etc. Below is our announcement trailer (A mix of CGI and gameplay), which hit a crazy 1,320,000 odd views!
Outside of us just working hard I think another key factor in the success of the game so far has been our great community. I’m sure a lot of devs say that but I genuinely think having a great community of people playing the game from the earliest prototype of Marauders has been so important (especially as we are a competitive shooter). They have given great feedback, helped us find bugs and overall helped battle harden the game. They also create some cool shit and funny memes, here is just a random selection from our Discord channel:
It’s also been great fun watching the community play that game, with a lot of laugh-out-loud moments! We have had tons of youtube videos made and hundreds of Twitch steamers play the game over our Alpha, Beta and playtests. From a development point of view, watching people play is always a great way of seeing problems and pain points with the game! We have fixed and tweaked so many things to help try and refine gameplay, without them ever having to be reported. There are so many great content creators, both big and small that have played Marauders that you should check out. For Twitch streamers I suggest having a look through the Marauders Twitch Clips, they are great and so funny! Check out this link for a bunch of great Marauders Youtube Content. Below is ZChum playing in the latest technical playtesting, which made me laugh hard.
The game has gotten so much bigger than I ever imagined when we first started that original prototype and it looks like it’s going to keep on growing! I’m proud of what we have managed to accomplish so far with such a small team and I’m super excited about Marauders future!
Until next time here are a couple of videos of gameplay from our Alpha and Beta that Team 17 did a great job putting together!