London, U.K. – October 13th 2026 – Longdue is announcing a timeline for release of a pre-alpha playable of their upcoming cRPG Hopetown – designed by some of the team behind Disco Elysium – available only to its two highest tiers of Kickstarter backers that earn the ‘Visionary’ or ‘Builder’ tier by backing the still-active Kickstarter campaign before 1st November.
The pre-alpha playable will feature over 300,000 words of dialogue, an estimated 5 hours of gameplay, 8 interior locations, part of an open exterior explorable town, 2 recruitable companions, 40 NPCs, 8 minutes of music, and 10 side quests in addition to the Prologue and Chapter 1 of the main quest.
A new Kickstarter tier – the ‘Quicksilver Edition’, will be available to a limited number of 500 new backers, or until 1st November if not all 500 copies are taken earlier. This will unlock access to the playable within 90 days, ‘Builder’ tier, an in-game exclusive outfit, and the backers name in an in-game newspaper.
A second new Kickstarter Tier – the ‘Quicksilver Art Patron’ – limited to 15 new backers, will also be live till 1st November, allowing backers to get a custom hand-drawn portrait drawn by the Hopetown art team, plus the other perks of the Quicksilver Edition.
The pre-alpha playable will be released to all new ‘Visionary’ and ‘Builder’ tier backers within 90 days of the campaign ending, meaning a latest January 2027 launch, via Steam, and be available for a limited time period for feedback.
Existing backers that were already ‘Builder’ or ‘Visionary’ tier as of 15th October 2026 will receive the pre-alpha playable by 1st December 2026.
Gathering feedback from community members
The pre-alpha playable It will feature early versions of gameplay systems such as publishing, interviewing, and evidence collecting, allowing direct feedback into the iteration and improvement of these systems. It will not feature gender selection for the protagonist, which is intended for the final game.
Extensive feedback systems will be set up to enable these Kickstarter backers to provide detailed information and feedback that will be aggregated to iterate and improve core aspects of the gameplay in Hopetown from direct player feedback.
Longdue has already applied feedback to revamp and improve its art style, as featured in a recent video, but will seek in game player feedback to improve further.
Anti Generative AI Policy
The studio is also releasing an anti-generative AI policy, available on the official Hopetown website in full, which commits to no usage of generative AI in the creation of art for the game and gives examples of ‘shortcuts’ that have been used in development of these types of games using GenAI and the real human parallel of each.
It also sets out the process by which ‘human proof’ is logged at various stages of the creation for art, writing, and music to prove and document the iterative process of humans creating elements of the game, rather than AI, which is encoded in what the system is calling a Certificate of Human Creation (CHC). It will also release the template and processes for other studios to release such certification for their own video games.
Below is an example of an initial human-painted texture of an area, and nearly 2 weeks of iteration to get this to a higher fidelity. Longdue is committing to these development techniques to protect jobs and keep GenAI out of art.
Additional context
Hopetown takes place on the fictional mining island of Eastern Entre, decades after “The Flare” – a coronal mass ejection that fried all electronics and communication devices across the globe. It was here that the De Luna Corporation unearthed Quicksilver, a substance capable of linking the world once more. Players slip into the shoes of graduate journalist ‘Zola’, investigating and reporting on these series of events that unfold after a storm has disrupted mining operations.
You’ll delve into the island’s seedy underbelly and scale the caustic ivory towers of corporate surveillance as one of three distinct classes: Correspondent, the investigative journalist – eyes like a camera, hands like a clock. Columnist, of the vogue variety, the cultural fashionista who decides what’s in and what’s out. And Gonzo, the sensationalist, the clickbait mouthpiece who will say anything to glue eyes to the page. Shape your character’s background and gender to compose a narrative that is well and truly your own.
The stories you tell, and how you tell them, will define Hopetown’s narrative as you carve your path through each assignment. They’ll affect your relationships, your standing with the island’s numerous factions, and the world beyond…because word travels fast.
Hopetown is being created by several of the team that worked on Disco Elysium, including narrative lead Martin Luiga – ZA/UM founder and Disco Elysium writer, Disco Elysium writer and editor Olga Moskvina, Veljo Hagu – Disco Elysium’s first software developer, and Lenval Brown – the narrator of Disco Elysium.
Key Points
- Longdue is releasing a pre-alpha playable version of the game, Hopetown, to ‘Builder’ and ‘Visionary’ Kickstarter tier backers in less than 90 days. The playable features over 300k words of writing, an estimated 5 hours of gameplay, and over 10 playable locations and 10 side quests
- Existing Kickstarter backers at this tier have already started receiving the playable
- A new ‘Quickstarter Edition’ and ‘Art Patron’ Kickstarter tier are available for a limited time if new backers want to back the project and get this early playable access
- Hopetown is nearing 100k wishlists, has multiple developers working on it that worked on Disco Elysium, including writing/editing leads Martin Luiga and Olga Moskvina
- The studio is also releasing its anti-generative AI policy setting out examples of how it is preserving handcrafted art and processes in the creation of the game, and documenting proof of the stages of art creation by hand by human developers in a new system called a Certificate of Human Creation (CHC).
- It will also release the template and processes behind a CHC so that other studios could adopt this for their own projects, plus is calling for other studios to create an independent board that oversees the CHC process in the long term.
Website for Game: www.hopetowngame.com
Website for Studio: www.longduegames.com
Pre-order discounted copy on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/longduegames/hopetown
Wishlist on Steam: Wishlist Hopetown on Steam
About Longdue
Longdue is an independent studio founded focused on creating psychologically deep, narrative-first experiences. Longdue is here to make its mark as a meaningful and consistent voice in the cRPG space. It is currently developing its debut title, Hopetown.
