Announced in March 2009, the Move compatible, real-time strategy game for the PlayStation Network, Under Siege, was first set to release later in that year, but was then delayed to November 3rd 2010, and then given a late 2010 release date, which was once again broken. Developer Seed Studios has now spoken out about the title’s delay, explaining the difficulties behind releasing the game.
In a message posted on their Facebook, Seed Studios explained that the delay was due to Sony’s rigorous quality assurance process across four continents, and their own inexperience as a self-published developer:
Dear Friends and fans,
Under Siege ™ was created in 2007 by the hands of Bruno Ribeiro, the lead-programmer of Seed Studios. The starting point was to bring to consoles the RTS genre, but in a way that worked well with the main controllers, allowing a different approach to handle it, away from the mandatory concept of the use of mouse and keyboard. The platform chosen was the Playstation® 3 – the digital distribution model was very interesting for us, as also the technical capabilities and the universe in its brand. From the original idea, the concept was always evolving until we reach the current format, passing through several interface versions, game play, game design, sound, language, among many other disciplines that a video game at this level requires.
As a result, Under Siege ™ is a project that has been constantly growing over the 2 ½ years, ending up far more complete than we imagined when we began this adventure! Consequently, the workload of each team member has increased, as also the degree of complexity. So, 78,000 hours later we have something like 360,000 lines of code and about 10,000 files that make up the download will be available on PlayStation ® Store. As such, we would expect that closing a project of this magnitude wouldn’t be easy, but the truth is that we have it closed – we’re done!
However, as you have noticed, we were unable to make the release of Under Siege ™ on schedule, and we do not have, yet, a new date to announce. The Christmas time would have been fantastic to launch our game, and many gamers waited really for it. Unfortunately, despite all our efforts, this was not possible.
We think this is the right time for a detailed explanation, because your support has been unconditional, as we see on the weekly letters and emails we receive at Seed Studios, giving us kudos, even without having playing our video-game. It is this force that also makes us want to do better, so it would be very unfair not to give any explanation at this time.
First of all, it is important to say (and the risk of repeating myself) that the game is ready; both the national and international press has already begun to receive copies for review. The truth is that we were not at all expecting that a last step, which focuses solely on the final quality assurance, would be so time consuming. It is the first time that we produce and publish a project of our own and, as such, there was a whole learning process that eventually complicated our accounts in terms of calendar. The game has to come near perfection to your hands without ‘bugs’, but it is also important to be fully in accordance with the graphical environment and context that the PS3® universe you got used. Under Siege ™ will be sold in four continents (Europe, North America, Australia and South Africa) and in several dozen countries. The task of putting together the video game to work with Sony on all these countries is a demanding process, but it also has to be perfect.
The highly anticipated game will hopefully release soon, with it already being rated by the ESRB. We’ll be sure to keep you updated with the game’s release date – or any further delays – as soon as they happen.
