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Wild Life Community Announcement: The Path to Our Destination 1.0
🕑 Added 2025-03-21 10:44:31 +0000 UTCDear Wild Life Community,
We hope you are all doing well.
We are excited to share an important update with you. But before that, we believe it is a good idea to take a quick look back at the path behind us, so you can understand where we are coming from.
Reflecting on Our Path
Wild Life started as a humble Patreon project with just two of us—Steve and Chris—dreaming of crafting an open-world sexy RPG. As our community grew, so did our ambitions and the team. We shared roadmaps to outline our plans, but unexpected hurdles meant we couldn’t always follow through as promised. Those challenges taught us tough lessons about the complexities of game development. Your patience and encouragement through all highs and lows have always been our anchor and we cannot thank you enough.
A Demo Released and Lessons Learned
A pivotal moment came with our Steam demo release. It was a sobering wake-up call, exposing problems in our development process we couldn’t overlook:
Our vision for the tone, story and feature set of the game had not been as clear as we had thought. The demo helped with nailing the tone and gameplay, but central questions regarding the main plot and lore remained.
Our environment pipeline was inflexible and too focussed on premature polish over defining the overall level structure first. Every change to the level was a hassle. Our assets and materials were also ill-suited for the performance requirements of an open world many times the size of the small demo level.
Our core systems, while technically functional, were way too cumbersome to work with - we would hardly be able to create and balance the huge amount of quest and combat content needed for the full game with these. Others, such as animation and pathfinding, would need performance optimization, if we ever wanted to realize locations with many NPCs.
All this led us to big overhauls in all departments:
We went over the entire setting and lore in detail, really nailing down all factions, locations, important characters and plot points of the main quest.
We went with a smarter blockout approach for building the new world map. This allowed us to make changes quickly and test quests and pathfinding without a location needing to be finished first.
Code went to work on making the core systems cleaner, more robust and easier to edit before we would throw more content into them.
Putting in this effort on the foundations is now paying off and development is running smoother than ever.
Creating the demo also convinced us to make the leap to Unreal Engine 5. The transition has been quite bumpy, to say the least. But it has been worth it for us, as the open world tools it offers, most importantly Nanite, World Partition and PCG now allow our environment team to build our world map much more efficiently. It would have been a major struggle to realize a map of such size and detail on UE4, if we could have done it at all.
Why This Time is Different
Today, Wild Life rests on its strongest foundation yet. Here’s what has changed since the Demo:
Strengthened Team: Finding the right people for your team is always a difficult process. After some growing pains, we’ve assembled an amazing crew over the years, also bringing in seasoned game developers with a track record of shipping successful titles. Their expertise makes us more confident than ever that we can overcome any obstacles thrown our way.
A Smarter Workflow: Our improved, iterative process makes asset creation more straightforward, predictable and structured, ensuring a steady speed of development.
Core Systems Locked In: Dialogue, combat, NPC routines and navigation are no longer just plans or prototypes - they’re stable, tested, and maintainable systems.
Unreal Engine 5 Power: UE5’s tools are now well integrated into our pipeline, unlocking capabilities that we couldn't achieve with Unreal Engine 4.
Our Final Roadmap: From Here to Launch
We’re proud to present our final roadmap—the battle plan to bring Wild Life to completion:
Rooted in Reality: This isn’t a wishlist of maybes and nice-to-haves. It’s a definitive task list based on finished systems, a proven workflow, and a clear endpoint.
Launch Window Locked: Wild Life will launch on Steam as a FULL RELEASE—not Early Access—between August and December 2026. Expect the complete story of Wild Life on day one, with the sandbox editor following shortly after as a free update. This will ensure that both modes can each receive our full attention for their releases.
Summary of Our Development Process
Our task planning for the game is straightforward. In Trello, we’ve captured about 90% of the tasks required to complete the game. Our sprints span two months each, and at the end of every sprint—aligned with the end of the month as listed in Trello—we hold a meeting. During this meeting, we review whether we’re on schedule and make any necessary adjustments to the plan.
The planning process is split into two phases:
Rough Planning: This has already been completed for the entire development period. We analyzed all tasks and desired game content and roughly distributed them across the sprints.
Detailed Planning: The detailed plan for the first half of the year is finished. Once the first half concludes, we’ll create the detailed plan for the second half. In this phase, we dive into each task, discussing its content, dependencies, estimated duration, and who will handle it.
This structured approach ensures we work efficiently while remaining flexible to adapt as needed.
This roadmap is our leap of faith, and we’re going all-in—no half-measures, no turning back. We’ll pour every last drop of ourselves into making Wild Life real, and we won’t rest until it’s in your hands.
What’s Next
Behind the scenes, we’re tantalizingly close to being feature complete. All our open questions are answered and content production is going full steam ahead in all departments.
We invite you to follow our progress on the Trello board and join the conversation on Discord. Your feedback keeps us focused and motivated!
A Final Thank You
None of this would be possible without you. Your support and critique has fueled us through every trial, and we’re determined to make Wild Life worth the wait. Let’s make this shared dream a reality - together.
With deepest gratitude,
The Wild Life Team
Comments
EutCake
I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little scared. I've been looking forward to this game for so long, ever since you guys only had about 1000 patreons or so, it's been a ride for sure. I know I'm gonna be happy regardless, but i fear about the length of the game. I Don't wanna sound desperate, but damn i love the idea of this game! Shit ^^ I wish you guys the best of luck, i'm refering to you devs, you're all amasing. Especially thanks to you Adeptus Steve! You've been a pillar to this project for so long. You've been a great dude through out the years, casually texting with your followers, i won't ever forget your engagement and respect towards your community. Truly a one of a kind. Many regards a happy fan
Grell Rapier
There is actually a way to hide your activity when you are in the game and prevent it from showing on your list. I have family share active on my Steam and I was able to hide WL Demo and some other games. Go to the Game Page on Steam, Hit the "Gear" symbol, Select "Manage", and mark as "Private".
Hoss
Is there gonna be a non-steam option? Not all of us want our family and friends on Steam to see we have H-games on there, and also don't want to have to constantly be juggling the option of showing or not showing what we're playing . Upon release if there's a non steam option I'd buy it; if steam is the only option then I won't be.
LjQujd
Really excited for the final release of Sandbox Mode! Most content creators are still sleeping on Wild Life, but there’s a small, steadily growing community, including myself, that’s been building side-content specifically for Sandbox enjoyers for years now. Beyond what the game will offer at launch, there’s going to be a ton of community-made content to help bring adult creations to life in Sandbox Mode.
Bear
The team have all indeed come a great distance. There is no alternative to wildlife's sandbox tools for setting up scenes, creating and modifying pre-existing animations, and a design philosophy incorporating a heavy anthro/furry influence. You certainly check a lot of boxes, on top of attempting to fulfill the rpg you've set out for since the beginning. And for all of that, the team should be very proud. As you enclose on 1.0, I think the team should consider how they approach marketing. As powerful as wildlife is with its tools and production quality, it feels like its still rather unknown in communities that should know about it. I've passed through the cosmic truckload of furry content on the web and seldom hear its mention. Im not certain how to change that, but it feels like there is a large base of players that have not been harvested.
Batuhan Torbaci
ı get 10 dollars how can ı get uncencored game
Nick Craft
Sounds like there is a really commitment to seeing this project through - and with a thought out well structured plan for development. Cheers!
Vaynewight
I have been looking forward to seeing this game complete for so long! I created my Patreon account specifically for this game. I have never regretted it!
L1ltie
I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to the entire Wild Life team for the remarkable work accomplished so far and for their future efforts, enabling us to enjoy an exceptional and unique experience in this beautiful game. It gives me immense pleasure to support your project. "A great journey always begins with a single step." Kiss
Nicolas Acuña
Honestly, I found this game for the first time on a page that I remember was on a beach and I liked it so much that I decided to look for them. When I found them, I decided to help them so that this game could be finished and I could see it in full. Thank you for your effort and I wish you luck. English is not my native language, just in case you don't understand what I say.
David Figueroa
i'm super excited to finally play the full game, two questions how do i get a steam key and are you going to continue releasing alpha versions.
Sébastien Guyot
That's some great news and yeah what a journey you accomplished since the steam demo.
Wolfy Wet Furr
That's awesome to hear, I wish you guys smooth travels into next year!
Russell McCampbell
I played and loved the demo. I also played the current state of the game and did not like it much. The lack of the voice acting and life that was in the demo and the feeling of it just being broken. So much running... I really hope that the feeling of the demo can be re-captured in the main game. You had something there. It was simple and beautiful and sexy. If it could have just expanded from there. There is a game called Romantic Escapades that you should take a look at. The distance to quests and the collecting materials to do things and gain favor with the locals might be a better way to go if it is not too late.
Isidorn
Starting to read the post I got worried there for a moment you were going to cancel the project. Glad to see that's not the case. Not sure if I've supported from the very beginning, but it's at least from very early on, even though I've mostly been a silent supporter. Keep up the good work!
Chris Jacks
The Steam demo is why I'm here today. The passion and dedication of your team is why I'm at the tier I'm at now. Chris, Steve, and the entire team at Candy Valley Network, you all have raised the bar when it comes to how games are made. The level of transparency and communication is something I've never seen before. I've even directed another small studio to you (madmind studio) to show an example of how things should be done when it comes to patreon and kickstarter. You are truly my favorite studio. Keep up the amazing work everyone!
Linkadion
It's been quite the road huh? I'm glad that this project saw and will see through the end. And I hope you and the team the best of luck in anything you do in live.
TheDumbToad
Absolutely huge update, and once again the communication and transparancy are one of the key things that make you stand out from other creators. I can do nothing but cheer you all on as you're working towards 1.0. Much love.
Tattorack
Huh, interesting. I thought I heard of this game first when I still lived in France, which was 10 years ago... but perhaps not. I dunno, was a long time ago either way. Certain quite a journey to have followed so far.
Adeptus Steve
Thanks buddy :) Just 1 tiny detail I like to clarify: the first mention of this game project being a thing was in this video from 7 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc2b5EbnXts
Tattorack
Well well well, I honestly never expected to see a definitive release window for 1.0. How far you guys have come. I remember first discovering this game over 10 years ago, when it was just a bunch of assets placed on an oasis beach. I certainly also noticed your different approach to planning and building the game since the demo, which was a good change to see. Looking forward to 2026. When this game goes 1.0, it will be the first of its kind. A record setter. Keep it up, guys!
Colord44
So really while still a ways to go, slowly, the light at the end of the tunnel is approaching
