After a little over a year in early access on Steam, indie sci-fi FPS Fortune's Run might not be receiving any new updates for a while - and according to the immersive sim's lead developer, the reason behind this indefinite pause lies within a prison sentence.
Fortune's Run boasts a "Very Positive" rating overall on Valve's platform, with fans detailing how the shooter is "brutal and fantastic" in their reviews. The game has also steadily received updates from Team Fortune, the duo behind its development. According to the lead dev's new post, however, it's likely that Fortune's Run will remain as it is for some time: "I have some stuff going on I need to make public as it's going to interrupt development."
The dev continues in the update titled "Extremely Sad Depressing News," revealing that she won't be able to work as she's going to prison. "I've been sentenced to prison for the next 3 years. It's a long story, but I've lived a very different life before I was a game developer, and I wasn't living very well. My case is about 5 years old now," explains the lead, "I have been going through the legal process the whole time I've been working on this."
According to the dev, her sentence is set to begin in February: "I have finally been found guilty and sentenced, and I'm going away next month. It's a shame, but it's the consequences of my actions. I was a very violent person and I hurt a lot of people in my life. Unfortunately, the sentence isn't going to help with that at all, but I guess we all know that." However, the lead dev's situation doesn't necessarily mark the end of Fortune's Run.
"So the game isn't TOTALLY dead," she states, "but unfortunately due to even further bad things happening, it's unclear what will happen." As described in the post, the other developer recently stepped away from the project entirely as "she was no longer interested in game development." Without her available to take the helm for the next few years, the lead says "development will be completely interrupted until I'm released."
When she's released, Future's Run could launch out of early access: "There's a chance that if you wait a few years I'll be able to cap off the release. In fact, there's not very much content left to work on, I've been making stubs and prototypes of the missing levels in my spare time." The dev then concludes her announcement by assuring fans of the shooter that she's "extremely passionate" and will "do my best" to "finish it."
