Sintopia Launch Delayed, Early Access Cancelled

The unexpected release date announcement for the highly anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong has caused several other upcoming games to shift their own release windows because many game developers realize that their games are likely to be entirely overshadowed by Silksong, and they want to avoid that fate if at all possible. Well, it seems Silksong has now not only claimed yet another victim, but “sent it straight to Hell,” so to speak. Sintopia, a colony management sim wherein “you are charged with managing the bureaucratic administration of Hell,” was supposed to launch into Steam Early Access today.

At least, that was the plan before it was revealed that Sintopia’s Early Access launch would put it directly beneath the incoming destructive meteor that is Silksong. Consequently, Sintopia’s developer, Piraknights Games, has decided to cancel Sintopia’s Early Access period entirely and delay its full launch until sometime next year. As I’m sure you can imagine, many Steam users who have been looking forward to playing Sintopia are unhappy about this change of plans (to put it quite diplomatically). They haven’t been shy about voicing their displeasure either. I’d describe most of the replies to the news post containing this announcement as particularly harsh and vitriolic.

Admittedly, Piraknights Games probably didn’t help their case by outright admitting in the same post in which they announced this change of plans that they intend to play Silksong in the meantime, now that they’ve significantly delayed Sintopia’s release, even if they made that statement facetiously. Sometimes even humor with the best intentions behind it backfires spectacularly, and it’s never pleasant to learn that the hard way. I find this situation rather galling since I’m among those disappointed players who have been really looking forward to Sintopia.

To be uncharacteristically optimistic, however, maybe this is for the best. It’s often said that Early Access games “need more time in the oven;” I certainly don’t know of any ovens hotter than Hell itself, so hopefully this delay will give Piraknights Games all the time they need to polish Sintopia into the best version of itself that it can possibly be. If it turns out that Sintopia is ready for a full release sooner than Piraknights Games expected, nothing says they can’t launch it earlier than 2026. That is, unless there’s another massive, unexpected game release that happens to ruin their plans again.