Devil of the Plague

Devil of the Plague launched into Steam Early Access on May 1, 2026 and has maintained a very active development pace. In the roughly three and a half months since launch, the developer has shipped three major updates — 0.2.0 on June 27, 0.2.2 on July 13, and 0.3.0 on July 17 — alongside multiple feature patches and bug fix releases. On May 18, 2026, SoulByte Games published an official Early Access roadmap promising a Pirate Ship Map with voiced cutscenes in Q3 2026 and a 1.0 release expanding the game to 5 total maps with new monsters, NPCs, an overhauled lobby system, and expanded mechanics. On August 22, 2026 — just one day before this assessment — the developer posted a detailed development update explaining that major backend architecture work is underway specifically to enable upcoming features: the Occult Board, Cryptex puzzles, a new Lobby System, new gameplay mechanics, and a large content update targeting late October 2026. The developer also confirmed that approvals are in progress for PlayStation, Xbox, and GeForce NOW releases, with the goal of completing these before the end of 2026. The developer is transparent about why visible updates have slowed temporarily — the team is rebuilding core systems to support the larger updates ahead — and explicitly states that "development absolutely hasn't slowed down." This is a game in the middle of a busy Early Access cycle with substantial content explicitly committed to and a developer actively communicating about its progress.