It's been a long journey for New World Interactive. Going from Source-mod to retail game with their ambitious shooter Insurgency, their attempt to somehow grab a piece of a far overcrowded market, is a risky one. Still, I came out of the beta experience with a positive feeling overall, as I described in detail in my preview of the game. It still has some rough edges, and I would love to see even more content, but I hold steady on my opinion that the game is already about as good as finished at this point.

Well, New World Interactive apparently agree because they just released a short teaser trailer revealing that the game is indeed close to release. Very close. On January 22, the war breaks out again on the non-beta battlefields. An official press release has all the details:

"Following a successful nine-month Early Access campaign on Steam, the game is now ready to be played by a larger scale audience. The official launch will be on January 22, and celebrated by a live stream broadcast on Twitch."

There is little mention of new content currently unavailable in the beta that we'll see released with the official launch of the game, a training level is apparently included. Though it's officially out on January 22, the indie developer promises to continue the development of new content in the future as well. Completely free of charge, apparently.

"While this marks the end of the Beta phase for Insurgency, this does not mark the end of development by indie studio New World Interactive (NWI). Future updates and DLC are provided to anyone who purchased the game, as NWI continues to polish and build content on top of the game’s foundation."

There is even a detailed list of the features we can expect to see post-launch:

    -Regular updates containing gameplay improvements, usability enhancements and bug fixes.
    -New official maps, as well as a mapping contest and extra SDK content.
    -“Classic Map” DLC (including detailed remakes of the classic maps from the mod).
    -New weapons (FN FAL, M-14, and more) as well as new weapon attachments (Grenade launchers, bipods, and more).
    -New characters with increased customization and more realistic variety depending on theater (Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia).
    -Full body awareness so the player can look down and see their body.
    -Cover system where going into iron sights dynamically peers over varying wall heights.
    -Increased stats support.
    -Improved spectator support and features.
    -Steam Machine support.
    -Oculus (virtual reality) support.
    -Twitch API integration.
    -Linux support.

If you've played Insurgency, you might think it sounds a little soon to release it just one week from now. Why not just keep it in beta until all these cool features above have been fully implemented? Game director Jeremy Blum explains in a post on the official forums, that the reason behind the launch date is that the team is running low on resources, and feel that this is an opportune time to ship the game out the door. You know, compared to the alternative, which is to abandon the project completely.

So, hopefully I'll be meeting some of you on the battlefields come next Wednesday! Or, you could just buy the game now and get access to the beta. It certainly is worth the asking price, if you want my opinion.