Just under two weeks from its release date, devil's bargain deckbuilder The Killing Stone announces it will be launching into early access instead

"Inscryption-inspired card battler The Killing Stone gets a rad new trailer showing off voice talent from Critical Role and Baldur's Gate 3, and it's out next month," we said in January. All of that remains true, except that when it releases on February 18 The Killing Stone will now be releasing into early access rather than celebrating a full 1.0 launch.

In an announcement on Steam, writer/director Jordan Thomas, who you may know from Bioshock, The Blackout Club, or that one outstanding level from Thief: Deadly Shadows, wrote that, "Over the course of development, The Killing Stone became more story-forward than originally envisioned in pre-production. It now features a mystery-driven narrative, and interactive conversations with a modern English script and a 17th century script (player's choice).

"The feedback we've gotten from our playtesters suggests that players are especially invested in this narrative layer. They want more story, more voice acted content—and they want to puzzle out what's going on without being spoon-fed, all of which is going to take a lot of iteration based directly on player feedback."

The early access version of The Killing Stone will have all the game's optional missions and all three of its "primary story arcs" as well as "three demon lord opponents across critical path and optional content". What it won't have is "the game's substantial endgame arc, called The Reckoning—that will be added with the final 1.0 release."

While it's a shame to have to wait until later in the year to experience The Killing Stone in its final form, I'm glad to hear there will be more focus on its story, and more from voice actors Liam O'Brien (Critical Role, Marvel Rivals) and Emma Gregory (Minthara from Baldur's Gate 3). While it's been compared to Inscryption a lot, Inscryption's subsequent acts felt like a step down from its much stronger opening—let's hope The Killing Stone can maintain its impetus.

It'll be out on February 18 via Steam, where you can also find a demo to try it for yourself.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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