Overdungeon just got its first update in 4 years as developer blames issues with publishing contract
Rights to the game have returned to its developer
I have a soft spot for Overdungeon, a maximalist real-time mashup of tower defense and collectible card game, and I sang its praises three years ago. Its developers, Pocketpair, haven't updated it since, instead pouring their work into similarly expansive "everything game" Craftopia and the Pokémon-alike (but with guns) Palworld.
Now Pocketpair have released a content update for Overdungeon and say that previous radio silence was because they were "a bit tired and struggled with our contract with the publisher."
"Well, here is a brief explanation of why the development of Overdungeon has been halted," begins the explanatory post on Steam. "After its release, we have been working crazily to release patches daily to make our favorite game a finished product. We signed a contract with a publisher to that more players could enjoy our game, but it didn't work out well as opposed to our expectations, and we needed to figure out what to do.
"At some point, we gave up on updating Overdungeon. We couldn't make a living with that. Instead, we decided to start developing Craftopia. It really was painful for us to start the development of Craftopia while Overdungeon still had bugs. And we've always wanted to update the game. However, after hard work, we were a bit tired and struggled with our contract with the publisher to put our hands on updates.
"Now, Pocketpair has all the rights to Overdungeon again, and we have become a bit larger as an organization. So we are finally ready to resume the updates of Overdungeon! Overdungeon is a challenging game with rough edges, slightly strange game balance, and full of our souls and passions!"
Pocketpair are based in Japan and I find the mixture of off-kilter English and the frank admission that Overdungeon has "rough edges" and "slightly strange game balance" wholly charming.
You can find a full changelog for v1.2.0 of Overdungeon on Steam. It includes a new character called Kunoichi, with her own card pack and quest, as well as quality-of-life updates and bug fixes. Overdungeon is currently 50% off, too.