Why Early Access?

“Early Access represents a way for players to experience SLAYERS FOR HIRE® early, while also providing much needed support in our most crucial period of development. This enables us to not only create a better game, but allows you to support and give feedback while the game is at its most pliable. It's a win-win!

Once we develop the game further with more characters, stages, game modes, content, etc. then we'll leave Early Access. We've begun our transition to free-to-play with our Founder's Pack, but at 1.0 we plan to fully support ourselves with cosmetics sales (no pay to win, no paid lootboxes).

Thanks so much to everyone who supports us to make SLAYERS FOR HIRE® the best game it can be!”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Our current roadmap has us leaving Early Access in the next 4-8 months. Specifically, we'll leave Early Access once we have our mainline roster playable, a significant amount of polish on every aspect of the game, and a handful of extra features implemented (such as a ballin' tutorial for new players).”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“We love games like Battlerite, Brawlhalla, and Gigantic, where players have the option to play the game for free and unlock content over time. Alternately, players with more money than time can pay a small amount to unlock the characters. Once we leave Early Access, this is the business model we plan to transition to.

Incidentally, we plan to grant Founder's Pack players full access to all characters - both now and forever.

In the current version, we only have three characters playable of the planned six for the 1.0 launch. The full version will have more characters, more stages, more content, more features, more polish. Just more, more, more.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Our Early Access features include:

• Three playable characters: Slugger, Artist, & Spy
  
• Core gameplay (movement, combat, combos, etc) feeling great
  
• Local & Online play with rollback netcode, 2-16 players
  
• Controller & keyboard support

We'll be rolling out updates with content, balance patches, and more over the course of our Early Access run.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“Once we conclude Early Access we will open the game to be free-to-play! Our plan is to reward Early Access players with all the characters as they're released, but new players will need to unlock the characters over time or purchase a character pack.

Also, when we exit Early Access we plan to raise the price for character packs compared to their current price. This is partly to reward players who are supporting us early (thanks again!) and partly to reflect the ever-increasing amount of content we plan to roll out.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“Discord! We've got a rockin' server where we hang out with the community to chat and get feedback daily. It's where you'll find our most recent and detailed updates, and where you can talk to us about them. It's been a ton of fun seeing our community grow from 1 person (thanks mom!) to a few thousand, and I'm so grateful for all the support!!

If you have ideas for changes, items, stages, characters, anything, then come let us know! Or if you have problems then ESPECIALLY let us know! We want to make this game as good as it can be, and that can't happen unless we hear from you on what you want to see fixed. We read everything you guys send our way! It's super appreciated!!

You can also reach out to us on the Steam forums, YouTube, or Twitter if that's more your jam. Although Discord is our primary communication platform for updates and discussion, we do post out updates on those platforms as well.

In any case, you can find a link to our Discord on our website. Thanks again, and hope to see you there soon!”