Drifter

Drifter entered Steam Early Access on March 4, 2014, as an open-world space trading sandbox. Over the following years, the developer (Celsius Game Studios) shipped a steady stream of feature updates, progressing through version series 0.6.x, 0.7.x, and 0.8.x. In July 2015, the developer announced "The Year of Drifter," expressing optimism about reaching version 1.0 before the end of that year. In December 2015, they outlined a plan for 3–4 more major updates before a 1.0 release, targeting one major update every four weeks. The updates continued through 2016 and into 2017–2018, adding systems like scriptable missions (0.8.0), an initial faction system (0.8.1), pilot attributes/skills (0.8.2), and SDL2 support (0.8.3). The final update, version 0.8.4, was released on March 20, 2018. In that post, the developer acknowledged it had "been far too long" since the last release, stated they were continuing work on finalizing things for 1.0, and planned to position the upcoming 0.9.x series as a pre-1.0 shakedown. That was the last official communication from the developer. Since March 20, 2018, there have been no further updates, blog posts, or announcements. The game has remained in Early Access through June 2026 — more than eight years after the last developer post — with version 1.0 and the promised 0.9.x series never released. Core systems that were still incomplete as of the last update (pilot skills, full faction interaction) appear to have never been finished. The game's current status is deeply uncertain: the developer clearly intended to continue, but all communication and updates stopped without explanation.