Cube World launched its alpha to paying early access players in 2013. And that's when things went wrong. Cube World developer Wolfram von Funck, who goes by Wollay, is now ready to launch their game fully, six years later, but it hasn't been easy. Wollay announced Cube World's completion yesterday and followed it up with a blog explaining their personal struggles. The development of Cube World hasn't been easy for Wollay, but they're taking an important step forward.
"When I released Cube World back in 2013 ... I was enthusiastic to finally share my game with you," Wollay describes in his post. "It was a dream come true for me." What happened next is well-recorded. Cube World faced a major Denial of Service attack, forcing Wolly to disable the store at times. But the DoS did more than just damage the game. It also deeply hurt Wollay, who says the event traumatized him and "kind of broke something inside me."
At the time, Wollay closed off from the world. He was the target of harassment over social media and, as he now makes clear, has been suffering from anxiety and depression ever since the DoS. While Wollay has maintained a social media presence throughout Cube World's development, they've kept it very contained. It can't have been easy, but Wollay continued to work on Cube World. They've kept working toward their dream.
Wollay's work has come to fruition, though their trepidation remains obvious. "There were several points in the past years where I considered releasing an update, but every time I was afraid it wasn't good enough," explains Wollay for the delay. He says how his reach for perfection even led him to rework the game from scratch several times. "The version I'm planning is basically Cube World 2.0." Cube World is finally in a state that Wollay is happy with, that it's fun and ready to share.
Cube World will be fully released either in the later weeks of September or October, according to Wollay's current plans. They say that they're working on the game's homepage and adding certain "lore-related things" to the game before it's ready to launch. Players will soon be able to explore Cube World's open-world setting on their own, to quest and progress through Cube World's procedurally-generated environments.
Even six years later Cube World has a lot of very excited fans. The challenges that Wollay's faced to reach this point can't have been easy. Hopefully, their determination is met with positivity and excitement.
Cube World releases in September or October on PC.