After many hours of work, I believe that Spiritus Astrum is finally ready to meet the world.

I have recently passed by steam build review, and I have decided on a release date.

The Early Access release should be coming out on September 14th, 2026.

There is still a lot of work to do before the project is fully done, and I intend to add more and more features to it for as long as I can, but the project is stable enough and has enough content for an EA release.

I am not 100% sure what the price will be for the game yet.

I am currently debating between making it free or charging a small fee.

I will post an update when I decide on the pricing.

I also have access to some steam keys which I can use to allow beta testers to play the game early.

If anyone would like a steam key, please contact me.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1668: Early Access Release Date Announced! first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

Spiritus Astrum has passed its steam build review!

This means that it is ready for release.

I had some very minor issues with the build review (Steam weren’t happy with the web browser that was included in the game) so I had to delay the intended release by about a week, but there were no major issues.

I will make another post about the release date, but it’s set for September 14th (And not the 7th as I said in the previous post that I made).

This week, I also added different projectile effects to each of the gun types for the valkyrie fighter, and I made some improvements to the way that the main menu gui is displayed in shuttles.

I also improved the console code to allow it to be interacted with while the player in inside a shuttle too.

Finally, I am working on a whole new GUI for the Valkyrie fighter, that shows missile/gun status, threat status, etc. This should be done in a day or so.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1667: Towards Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have added the ability to fire guided missiles from the rocket launcher.

Left click fires a standard unguided missile, right click now fires a slower missile that can be guided using the WASD keys. It has a camera mounted on board that can be viewed using a screen on the launcher, and the missile can also be manually detonated by right clicking again.

The video below shows off this new feature.

I have also made some minor improvements to the game, and fixed a few minor issues.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1666: Towards Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

Spiritus Astrum is very, very close to an Early Access release.

I made a post earlier this week announcing a release date in September. I actually removed this post, because my game build has not yet passed the build review (It is currently in the queue) and the steam team advised me that an early September data may not be achievable, depending on how long it takes for the game to pass the build review.

So, I can’t announce an exact date yet, but I am hoping that it the game should be in early access within a month or so, depending on the build review (There may be bugs, etc, that I need to fix).

I am not 100% sure what the price will be for the game yet.

I am currently debating between making it free or charging a small fee.

I will post an update when I decide on the pricing.

I also have access to some steam keys which I can use to allow beta testers to play the game early.

If anyone would like a steam key, please contact me.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1665: Towards Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have added quite a few more traits and skills to the game, as well as tested and improved the skill gui menu and adjusted the exp requirements for the different skill levels.

I have also added a stamina bar, which prevents the player from sprinting continuously.

I have cleaned up the console prints on the client and server, and removed some unneeded debugging statements.

I have created a clean build of the game, and tested it, there don’t seem to be any major issues.

Pressing F12 now automatically saves a screen shot to the build directory.

Finally, I have added a simple admin script to allow me to save the server state, send messages to all connected players, kick/ban, etc.

The Early Access release is basically done now, I just need to prepare the master server for launch, and do some final testing. Once I upload the build to steam, I may do a limited pre-EA release using steam keys to grant access.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1664: Towards Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have made many improvements to the game, and fixed many bugs.

The game balancing during combat has been improved, and I have made improvements to the physics code, and movement. I have improved the control system layout, and added basic joystick support.

The campaign story triggers have been tested and further improved, and I have added visible navigation paths to complex interiors to aid in navigation (Activating the in-game radar also displays any nav paths that are available). This makes it much easier for the player to navigate within interiors.

I also fixed a complex longstanding bug that was causing some items to rotate incorrectly when placed far from the player, as well as another bug with rotating the jetpack at certain angles.

I have also wired up several of the games unlockable abilities/traits/skills. Not all will be done in Early Access, but I am going to add as many as I can. The skills system in the game has also been tested and improved.

Finally, I have improved the weapon reload system so that weapons now reload automatically, even if ammunition is not equipped in the item slots. This makes combat and gameplay easier.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1663: Towards Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have tested and improved the random quest system in the game. This is very simple at the moment, and needs to be improved, but it is functional.

I have also improved the GUI’s in the startup menu to make them simpler and easier to understand, and made some minor improvements to the main in-game guis.

The games documentation has been improved, with quite a lot of new detail added. It is available HERE. I have also added buttons and menus to more quickly access the in-game help documentation.

The campaigns (Especially the multiplayer campaigns) have had safety checks added to prevent some abilities and features from being available when they shouldn’t be.

The multiplayer/master server now has a user limit of 20 concurrent users. This is quite low, but the server has not been stress tested extensively, so I want to keep the concurrent users as low as possible until it has been properly tested under real world conditions.

The biggest improvement that I have made is with the game balancing for the third campaign. I have made several improvements here, and I am in the process of testing them. So far the game feels much more balanced than it was previously.

I have also fixed some small issues that I discovered while testing.

Finally, I had added a GUI to the capital ship in campaign 3 to allow the player to view a description and statistics for all of their ships weapons.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1662: Towards Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I am hopeful that I will finally be able to get Spiritus Astrum into Early Access at some point this year.

All that is left for the EA release is testing, debugging, and some tutorial menus and in-game hints.

The game is mostly single player at the moment, with three single player campaigns and a single player survival scenario.

I have also added a multiplayer survival scenario as well, although this is in beta.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1661: July 2026 Update first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have added tracer rounds to both the players weapons and all enemy weapons. This makes it much easier to see where fire is coming from, as well as making combat sequence much more dynamic.

I have also improved the muzzle flash effects, slightly, and fixed some more minor bugs with the AI combat system.

I have also made some improvements to the AI companion system, and the crafting system. If a crafting dummy is removed before the crafting is completed, the player will now have any items that they combined with the crafting dummy returned to their inventory, instead of being lost.

I also slightly updated the graphics for the game on steam.

I am working on what I hope is the final phase of the project before the Early Access release.

In addition to bug fixes, there are still some improvements and features that I need to add, etc.

In particular, a lot of the character customisation options (Such as traits, etc), do not yet have a tangible effect on the game.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1660: Towards Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have fixed two long standing bugs with the character system in the game. These bugs were causing visible distortion on the character meshes under certain circumstances. The issue was visual only, but it was noticeable enough to be a problem.

I also fixed some issues regarding spawning at random locations in the multiplayer survival scenario, and I made some improvements to the groundcover/grass exclusion system on ringworld.

In addition, I fixed a number of bugs with the inventory and item systems, as well as the enemy AI combat and spawning systems. One bug with the animation system took a particularly long time to find. It was causing the enemy AI to face in the wrong direction every time the fire animation was played. This turned out to be an issue with rotation baked into the animation itself that was causing the character to rotate.

Finally, I am in the process of adding tracer rounds to most weapons in the game. This allows both the players and enemies projectiles to be visible from a distance, which makes it easier to see where enemies are, as well as letting the player know when they are under attack. This is very important in a game with such long view distances as Spiritus Astrum. The effect also looks very good.

The next goal is to finish adding the projectile tracers, and fix some more bugs with the enemy NPC’s. This should take a few days. I then want to do some more testing, as well as add helper menus, tooltips, etc, to the game to reduce the learning curve a little.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1559: Towards Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.