Developer New World Interactive has just announced that its upcoming FPS title Insurgency: Sandstorm will not be released for another couple of months. The game was originally scheduled to launch on September 18, 2018, and now the date has been pushed back to December 12. “This was one of the hardest decisions our team has ever had to make and not one taken lightly,” New World Interactive wrote. “However, we feel it is in the best interest of the game and our community to spend more time working to ensure we deliver the best possible experience.”
The developer also told fans that Insurgency: Sandstorm‘s pre-order beta would be continuing until the release of the game. In the meantime, the New World Interactive has a number of goals it is looking to meet in regards to working on the game. “Despite the game’s improvement, we are acutely aware that not all of you are having the ideal experience we want to deliver. By extending the beta and moving our launch date to December, the additional time will allow us to make significant improvements to the game with continued input from you,” the developer added. “The additional time allows us to target a lower minimum system requirement, address more bugs, work on overall polish, gather additional feedback from the community to refine gameplay, and ensure that highly requested community features which may otherwise have had to be added post launch (such as community servers and custom games) are ready for day 1.”
Specifically, the developer listed out several of its most prominent goals for the game. By its launch in December, New World aims to upgrade to Unreal Engine 4.20, and continue optimizing Sandstorm for it. Improvements will be made to the game’s character models, textures, and animations, plus level visuals and gameplay. More cosmetic item variations will be added, with a new forearm tattoo cosmetic type that players can see even in first person mode. In-game server options are being expanded, so that players will have access to a server browser and community-run server support. And, of course, the extra time will allow for more bugs and glitches to be straightened out.
Insurgency: Sandstorm can be found and pre-ordered on Steam. Owners of the original Insurgency can also get a 10% loyalty discount on Sandstorm, which has now been extended through March 2019.