With the launch of the Steam Summer Festival in June, dozens of developers offered demos for their in-development projects. One of the most popular of the event was Windjammers 2, a sequel to the cult-favorite multiplayer flying disc arcade game. Yet despite excitement for Windjammers 2, there was also a lot of constructive feedback for the game. Developer DotEmu has taken this feedback to heart, it seems, as it's announced a delay into 2021 to add some fixes.
One of the biggest issues that Windjammers 2 demo players had was the lack of rollback in the game's online multiplayer. Rollback is an intuitive approach to dealing with lag in fast-based online games, especially fighting games. Rather than freeze the game when there's lag, rollback allows the game to continue by assuming what players' inputs will be. If the assumption is correct, the game continues smoothly. If it's incorrect, the game can rollback to the state of the game where the lag first happened. It's not perfect, but it's a major improvement.
DotEmu describes how it's due to fans' excitement regarding Windjammers 2's online mode, as well as its excitement for a potential competitive community to grow around the game. That's why it's focusing on improving and fixing Windjammers 2's online mode based on player feedback.
The planned changes to Windjammers 2 have caused the delay into 2021. DotEmu believes that it's a necessary decision that will make for a much better game. In the future, DotEmu says that it will be sure to share more information regarding Windjammers 2's development. Characters, stages, and hopefully an eventual release date, will shared by DotEmu in 2021.
Windjammers 2 releases 2021 on PC, Switch, and Stadia.