In an industry where delays are commonplace, it's rare you see a game's release date actually move forward, but that's exactly what's happened with cooking roguelike Omelet You Cook. By choosing a February launch, publisher SchuBox Games is looking to avoid competition – as Slay the Spire 2's planned March release seemed set to absorb all its potential buzz.
"Originally we were operating under the assumption we wouldn't have to worry about Slay the Spire 2 since it was set to come out in late 2025," Dan Schumacher, creator of SchuBox Games and co-developer of Omelet You Cook, tells GamesRadar+. "But we somehow missed the delay and March release announcement."
"There was no way we could release at the same time as an absolute juggernaut in our own genre," he says. "Every streamer we'd reach out to will be playing it. Every roguelike enjoyer will be checking it out. Even I'll be playing so much that I won't have time to finish our game!"
But it wasn't their own schedule they had to work around, arrangements at Steam had to be altered too. Schumacher and Hjalte Tagmose, the other co-developer on Omelet You Cook, managed to snag a lucrative Steam Daily Deal slot that worked for their timeline. "It gave us plenty of time to finish and playtest what we wanted for 1.0 without stressing, it fell between major Steam events and sales, and it was during a major festival that we had applied for," Schumacher recalls.
Another release date needed to be set, and even though February has its own issues, with Steam Next Fest and Mewgenics' launch, a day was sorted. Thankfully, music and localization for the game, where you make omelets for hungry customers under increasingly tricky circumstances, could make the new deadline, and everyone got to work.
"It's just saying, 'No' to a lot of friends and working seven days a week for a month to make sure we can pull it off ourselves," Schumacher states.
He compares the whole process to Silksong's arrival. Years of anticipation meant the Hollow Knight sequel was a release nobody wanted to go up against, and as Schumacher rightly notes, Slay the Spire 2 itself purportedly moved to avoid Team Cherry. There's a version of this same dance happening around GTA 6 now, as major publishers side-eye Rockstar for even a hint of another delay, because nobody wants to release anything anywhere near it.
For smaller games like Omelet You Cook, any and all room to breathe is vital, especially as its developers make the big leap from Early Access into 1.0.
"We're dropping the shield of the Early Access title that encourages people to be kinder in their reviews," Schumacher adds. "But we're trading that in for a chance to bring the game to a wider audience and we're so proud of how far the game has come."
Omelet You Cook goes 1.0 on Steam on February 8.
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