https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/astrox_imperium_continue_development

Does anyone have more information?

Sorry to inform you but it is most likely over with! What we can expect is simply some "sort of finalization" in a playable but incomplete state, as the game could have 10 times the content in theory. I just hope the dev is making the game open source using a GPU-GPL license so others can continue the development. Currently, all we can do is "modding". The problem is, there is no game like this one... so no game can "take over its spot"... as there is simply no "offline EVE". However. the dev simply got other priorities now and games are not a big priority anymore.

Here is some of the things he recently posted on Steam:

""""I've had a few unfortunate things happen that remind me what is really important in life... and video games ain't it. I am very lucky to be where I am now, and walking normally.
My plan is to solidify what I have here into an enjoyable sandbox experience, transform the Campaign into the tutorial mode, release the game as complete... and bid farewell to you all. I know some of you want more personal details, but I will no longer be sharing like I used to, I've learned a hard lesson and will not repeat my mistakes."""""

No one knows what he exactly is talking about because it is not specific, just how it is and how it looks at this point.

In general the entire project was already "on a knife edge" for more than half a year already... where we got some hints from the dev related to some potential issues he got... it was even pretty specific at this moment. Although, until now nothing has been written anymore... and the most recent message is clearly stating what many people had in mind already.

This precedes the changelog in the "game_updates" file of Build 0.0145 dated 2025-02-06:

"WTF happened to momo...
I am trying to get things together again, for those of you who stuck by and didn't trash me, I really appreciate it, means more to me than you will ever know.
I've had a few unfortunate things happen that remind me what is really important in life... and video games ain't it. I am very lucky to be where I am now, and walking normally.
My plan is to solidify what I have here into an enjoyable sandbox experience, transform the Campaign into the tutorial mode, release the game as complete... and bid farewell to you all.
I know some of you want more personal details, but I will no longer be sharing like I used to, I've learned a hard lesson and will not repeat my mistakes.
I don't suspect I will be releasing any other games here on Steam. It was fun while it lasted, but the fun is over for me. I hope you all understand."

Welcome to GOG !

I had a good laugh... for sure!

Anyway... usually when a dev is saying "goodbye" on Steam they basically mean "i am over with games"... as hard as it sounds.

I think is more "im done with the community" than games in general. People
can become obsessed with something and get very very toxic. Not everyone
can handle that kind of pressure without a proper team behind. I bought the
game even knowing its code will be released as open source. I hope that doing so
the game will improve even further than the original vision of the dev. I saw huge
open source projects that are better than most AAA games. Lets hope this is the
case for Astrox Imperium.

I believe their original statement in that they had a life altering moment, is true. There is no reason to speculate, I'd rather give them the benefit of the doubt. They could have chosen to say nothing and just left, but they didn't. That speaks well of them.

Also, they are trying to finalize as much as possible (to sandbox state I believe?) before stopping entirely. That too speaks highly of them.

And the decision to make it open source, shows they care deeply about their game (perhaps it was even their passion and lifelong goal) and hope it will continue on with the help of the community. It seems like a good game, so likely the community will pick it up. (I did purchase it GOG early on, to add in my little bit of support.)

I hope for their speedy recovery (if not already recovered) and I hope they enjoy whatever they choose do with their life. My best wishes for them and thank you for taking the chance to release it on GOG!

Just the way we welcome developers with open arms, open minds and open hearts (or try to, I hope), we should also send them off with the same kindness (or at least in a less abrasive way).

What developers (and publishers) see here on GOG, may affect their choice (at least I believe so) to bring their games to GOG. So why handicap GOG's efforts even more than I'm sure it already is, to convince them to release their games here. We shouldn't shortchange ourselves and even with some of the negatives here, GOG is overall a caring community (both the GOG team and GOG users). So why not show them, that GOG is a good home for them?

(I'm not always good at communicating my feelings, but I hope some of what I'm saying makes sense and not too over-the-top.)
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