| Witchfire | |
| Developer: | The Astronauts |
| Publisher: | The Astronauts |
| Director: | Adrian Chmielarz |
| Engine: | Unreal Engine 4[1] |
| Released: | September 20, 2023 (early access) |
| Platforms: | Windows |
| Genre: | First-person shooter |
| Modes: | Single-player |
Witchfire is an upcoming first-person shooter video game developed and published by The Astronauts. The game was released for Windows PC in early access in September 2023.
Witchfire is to be an action-oriented, skill-based first-person shooter game with no cutscenes.[2] [3] It will also feature elements commonly found in roguelike games.[4]
During the initial development, beginning towards the end of 2015, the game was being designed as a post-apocalyptic, science fiction survival simulator code-named "Astro Project 2", before turning into a dark fantasy first-person shooter.[5] Witchfire was officially revealed at The Game Awards 2017.[6] The Astronauts announced in January 2022 that Witchfire would be released via early access in late 2022.[4] However, in October 2022, it was announced that the early access date has been postponed to early 2023.[7] The game was released for Windows PC through the Epic Games Store on September 20, 2023.[8]
As of 2019, the development team has nine full members with three contributors.[9] The game is unrelated to the director Adrian Chmielarz's earlier Doom-style Painkiller (2004) and was influenced by FromSoftware's Dark Souls and Bungie's Destiny series.[10] [11] Its art direction inspirations include works of American landscape painters such as Thomas Hill, Albert Bierstadt, and Frederic Edwin Church.[12]