Andrew Gower, the creator of the beloved game RuneScape and co-founder of Jagex Ltd, has announced that the launch of his new MMO Brighter Shores is to be delayed – by a single day.
Fortunately for fans who may be concerned about issues behind the scenes, the minuscule delay does not result from any developmental problems. Instead, the game will be hitting virtual shelves a day later for political reasons, as voters in the USA go to the polls.
In a post on Twitter/X, Gower confirmed that the game will be launching into Early Access on November 6, instead of the originally slated November 5, to avoid conflicting with the Presidential election.
We have decided to push the launch of Brighter Shores back to the 6th Nov, because apparently there is some sort of election thingy on the 5th – who knew?!
— Andrew Gower (@AndrewCGower) October 9, 2024
Despite Gower and his team being based in the UK, they will be hoping to replicate the successes of his first project RuneScape, which found an enormous audience on the other side of the Atlantic. At this very early stage, it looks like it has all of the tools to do so.
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The game is presented in the same, previously inimitable style, and it features familiar pursuits and professions, including Woodcutting, Cooking, Fishing and Mining. That said, it does seem as though there’s a lot of new tech under the hood and Gower has broken down the development process in significant detail.
Work on the entirely bespoke game engine began all the way back in 2010, with development on Brighter Shores starting in 2016. With all of that done in secrecy, public confirmation of the game only went out in March 2024 and players now have a relatively accelerated timeline before they can get their hands on the game.
A closed beta for Brighter Shores is set to commence on October 22, with the full Early Access release on November 6. How long that will go on for is unclear, but the developer has confirmed that progress will not be reset at the end of the that period and players will be able to take their hard work into full launch.
