We have some very sad news to share: the next Shardfall Impact update will be the last. We’ve worked day and night to try to get the Impact to the point where it can support its own development costs, but it’s clear that it isn’t sustainable at present and we don’t have the resources to continue developing this product we all love.
This decision has not been easy and we’ve exhausted every avenue in our attempts to find an alternative. We want to express our heartfelt gratitude to each of you who has supported us through this journey. From our Kickstarter campaign in 2020 to the present, your encouragement has meant the world to us over the past four years. You’re the reason we’ve fought so hard for this and we cannot thank you enough.
It’s been a privilege seeing new players having their first experiences in the world of Shardfall over the last few months, as well as watching the die-hard fans making their way deeper into the World Levels. We want to ensure that everyone can continue to play the best possible version of Shardfall forever. To that end, we’ll be releasing a final update which will remove all online requirements and effectively give every player a free lifetime subscription.
As always, we believe in total transparency with you, our incredible community. Please read on if you’d like to understand more about the context of this decision and our plans going forward.
Why is Impact development not continuing?
As you may remember from our last update, the Impact was significantly loss-making in 2024. Our hopes were that:
- The holiday and new year period would bolster sales
- Organic sales would begin to bring down our marketing costs
- Releasing Shardfall VR would allow us to subsidise Impact development
Unfortunately, sales did not increase significantly and marketing costs remained fairly constant. Shardfall VR was extremely well received and made it into the top 5 apps on the Quest store, but this generated much less revenue than expected – just enough to support a two-person team.
Taking stock, we made the very difficult decision to downsize the team to its bare minimum, focusing the remaining time we have with the full team on a final update to allow players to enjoy Shardfall forever.
What are the plans for the Impact?
We stopped all subscription billing last week and will be giving all players free lifetime access to Shardfall going forward.
We’re working hard on a final update, which we are targeting to ship on the 27th of February. This update includes removal of the subscription requirement as well as a host of performance optimisations, bug fixes and quality of life improvements. Rage Leagues will be removed from the game to facilitate a fully offline release. We will also release an updated version of the Impact firmware with improved gesture recognition.
The current launcher will be discontinued at the end of March. All players will be able to download a new, offline launcher including Shardfall and the latest Impact firmware so that all players can continue to play Shardfall. We’ll share a link to the final Launcher later this month.
Can I still buy an Impact?
We’ll be selling our remaining stock of the Impact at a very steep discount for a limited time. You can buy the Impact at its lowest ever price of $69.98 (or the equivalent in your local currency) until the end of March or until stock runs out. All new customers will receive lifetime free access.
If you have any friends or family who would enjoy the world of Shardfall at an incredible subscription-free price, they can buy an Impact here.
Will customer support continue?
The Founders will continue to provide direct customer support via email and will maintain the help centre on playquell.com. It’s a much smaller team, so please bear with us. We’ll be responding to everyone.
What’s the latest on the Shardfall artbook?
The digital version of the artbook is ready and we’ll be sharing it with eligible customers in the next week. For those of you who’ve ordered a physical copy, we’re working through shipping with a smaller team and expect orders to ship in July. We sincerely appreciate your patience.
What are the plans for the Shardfall VR?
We’ll be shipping an update on March 13th including parries, a new sub-biome and numerous bug fixes. The roadmap for future updates is TBD based on ongoing sales.
Signing off
While this is obviously a sad day for all of us, we’re incredibly thankful to have had the opportunity to work with this exceptional community and unbelievably proud of the experience we created with Shardfall. Your support has kept us going through good times and bad, and we hope you’ll continue to enjoy Shardfall for years to come.
If you have any questions or just want to let us know how you’re feeling, please reach out—we’d love to hear from you. Thank you for everything. You are amazing.
