We Happy Few schedules 'bigger and better' Joy update for August

Despite its somewhat slow Early Access start, Compulsion Games' Aldous Huxley-esque We Happy Few has spent the past several months working towards full release by introducing new areas and playstyle options. A new devblog has outlined where the survival horror game is headed next.

"Originally we were planning to release two updates before the final release of the game: the Joy related update, and an update that would have contained the Parade District (a brand new biome)," explains Compulsion via this Steam Community post. "We have decided to push out only one major update between now and final release. This will be the Joy update, a bit later in the schedule (it will now come out around mid August), to make it bigger and better, and keep the Parade District for the final release."

In practice, Compulsion suggests this will see the game's Early Access and coinciding story builds (both of which share a code base) merge sooner than planned. The dev also notes that while it'd originally planned to introduce a 'Parade District' into the game this side of EA, saving this update till after launch makes more sense given it is "intertwined so heavily with the story… unlike other biomes."

The post continues: "By moving to only one final major update, we can merge the Early Access and the story builds earlier, so that we can concentrate all of our efforts on making the story the best it can be."

Compulsion's post can be read in full here. Here's another look at We Happy Few's latest trailer: