We are a small independent game developer located in Warsaw, Poland. Before The Astronauts, some of us worked on games like Painkiller and Bulletstorm.
Our latest project is Witchfire, a dark fantasy first person shooter set in an alternative world in which witches are real and very dangerous – but so are you, witchhunter.
Our first game was a weird fiction mystery titled The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. The game has won many awards, including BAFTA, and we sold over one million copies. It’s available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Click here for more details.
It has been quite a while since we last updated the FAQ and the roadmap, so we’re here to fix that.
This post is a one-stop shop, which means some of the answers below may sound familiar if you’ve been following our previous updates. The point is to gather everything in one place, update what needed updating, expand what needed expanding, and finally let the old FAQ retire instead of continuing to be linked around the web.
ROADMAP
As mentioned above, we’ve also updated the roadmap, but don’t expect anything groundbreaking – it’s merely an update, not a reveal of a completely new plan:
And now, for the main event: The FAQ.
Why Early Access?
Witchfire is an RPG shooter that uniquely blends soulslike, extraction, and roguelite elements while introducing many original gameplay features. It is the perfect kind of game to develop and balance with community feedback.
Approximately how much longer will Witchfire be in Early Access?
As of this update (July 2026 – 0.9), we are 85% content complete and have released seven major content updates during the Early Access period, with plans to launch 1.0 in late Q4 2026.
The game is not just a product to us – it’s a labour of love that some of us have been crafting for the better part of a decade. We care about it greatly and prioritise its quality on all fronts, which requires time and attention. We closely follow your feedback while testing the game ourselves, and we’re grateful for your enthusiasm and patience. To deliver something truly special, however, we need time – hence the launch window has been set for Q4 2026.
How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?
The recently released update 0.9 is the last checkpoint before 1.0 – we’ve already added all the biomes and enemies, with a few surprises still coming in 1.0, and we’re now focusing on Quality of Life improvements, balancing adjustments, and player-requested features.
We’re also finally adding a complete story, which is the primary difference between the Early Access version and 1.0. Until now, Witchfire has focused mainly on gameplay, with only fragments of lore and narrative. We’re building on the foundations introduced in update 0.9 and putting everything we’ve learned during Early Access into delivering a cohesive, challenging, and rewarding 1.0 experience. That’s our top priority.
What is the current state of the Early Access version?
We worked hard to ensure the Early Access version of Witchfire offers a satisfying amount of content. There are six main regions (just as we planned) to explore and battle in, with complete gameplay loops and a broad arsenal of weapons, spells, and other tools of war. In the 0.9 update, we introduced story elements as a bedrock for the complete narrative that will arrive in 1.0.
Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?
Currently, we have no plans to change the price after leaving Early Access, but we do want to offer a Deluxe or Supporter Pack with additional content, such as the original soundtrack.
How are you involving the Community in your development process?
We gather feedback through our Discord server, our social channels, and the Steam forums, and we continue to do so throughout development. Suggestions from the community have proven extremely helpful and allowed us to steer development toward the best version of the game – one we all want to play. We also invited selected members of the community to participate in closed betas before updates were released – their feedback helped shape the game and made sure each update shipped in a better state.
Will I have to start over when 1.0 releases?
We don’t know yet – our goal is to preserve existing saves if possible, and we’ve successfully maintained compatibility throughout Early Access so far, so we hope to do so again. At the moment there are no planned changes that would require a save wipe, but save compatibility can only be verified late in development through migration testing.
If we can confidently confirm that existing saves will remain compatible, we’ll let you know.
If a wipe proves unavoidable, we’ll let everyone know as soon as we know ourselves.
That said, we will recommend starting from scratch on a new profile (you can have six of them in the game) for the best (challenging) experience, since marching onto the Island of the Damned with a level 541 character hardly spells “challenge” and it would likely turn much of the game into a walk in the park.
What languages are supported?
As of 0.9, we added support for Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Spanish (Latin America), Turkish and Ukrainian. The game is, of course, also available in English. We’re open to the prospect of translating the game to more languages in the future, but we’re a small studio and localisations cost a pretty penny (when you’re doing it the proper, old-fashioned way, with people, not AI), so it depends on how well the game sells during and beyond the launch window.
Is there any form of multiplayer planned?
Short answer – no.
Long answer – we’ve been repeatedly asked for multiplayer, with co-op being the most frequent request, and we have repeatedly declined. Not because we dislike such games, but because it’s simply not feasible at the current stage of development. Witchfire has been designed as a single-player experience from the very beginning, and we know better than to make a pivot this big on the home straight: we’re at 0.9 now, with 1.0 being the next milestone. Co-op is something you need to account for very early in development if you want to do it properly. We’d rather spend our time making Witchfire the best single-player game it can be than changing course this late in development. Maybe our next project, whatever it may be, will have co-op. Right now, though, we’re focused on tying a bow on Witchfire, and that’s where our heads are.
Will there be a demo?
We don’t have plans for one. We’re a small team – creating, maintaining, and keeping a separate demo up to date would take time away from developing the full game. We’d rather focus our efforts on making Witchfire itself better.
Are there any plans involving consoles? If yes, what platforms?
We’re planning to release the game on additional platforms, and we’ve been working behind the scenes to make that happen. Our philosophy is simple: every optimisation and streamlining effort we make now benefits everyone involved – our Early Access supporters on PC get a better game today, while we make it easier for ourselves to bring Witchfire to consoles in the future. In that sense, the groundwork for console ports has been underway for quite some time. While we already have some development kits in our hands, we don’t want to speak too soon – we’re in talks with platform holders, checking technical viability and assessing our options. We’ll let you know once we’re confident we can deliver console versions of Witchfire without compromising on quality and the necessary agreements have been signed. A simultaneous launch on all platforms is still within the realm of possibility, but in the interest of fairness, we have to say that it’s quite unlikely.
Is Witchfire playable on Steam Deck?
Yes – Witchfire is Steam Deck Verified and fully playable on the device.
What level of controller support does Witchfire offer?
Witchfire is fully playable with Xbox controllers and also supports DualSense controllers on Steam (using Steam input). Some PC-specific DualSense features, such as adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, or PlayStation button prompts, are not currently supported, and we have no plans to add extensive controller customisation such as response curve adjustments. The rumble implementation currently in the game is by no means final.
Are you planning any accessibility options for the game?
We’ve been combing through your feedback and implementing accessibility features throughout the Early Access period. We added more granular control over camera shake, the arachnophobia filter, font scaling, and more, but we’re not done yet. We’re exploring additional options and evaluating what is technically feasible. Nothing is set in stone yet, but we recognise how important accessibility is, and we’ll likely publish a dev diary dedicated to accessibility features once we have the final list of planned features.
Are Epic Games Store save games compatible with the Steam version?
Yes. Both versions use the same save folder on your PC: \Users\your_username\AppData\Local\Witchfire\Saved\SaveGames
Just be cautious not to overwrite new saves with old cloud saves when switching between versions.
What if I have more questions or requests?
Here are some useful links:
The best place to ask questions, post suggestions, and chat with the devs and other players is our Discord;
