Pushing Torment: Tides of Numenera into Early Access was "tremendously helpful", says developer

Back in 2013 InXile Entertainment pitched Torment: Tides of Numenera on Kickstarter. Almost four years later, we spoke to writers Colin McComb and Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie to reflect on their experiences pushing the game through Early Access.

“For us, it has been tremendously helpful because we have had the feedback directly from gamers about what they want to see in the game. This feedback has been extraordinarily helpful to us as we’ve been developing the game”, said Colin McComb.

"The two of us, the producers and I’m sure other people within InXile just hungrily devour feedback. You need to if you’re making any game, I’d say. We check out Twitter, we check our Torment’s subreddit, we check out everywhere we can for information about how people feel about the game to help us understand what people like and what people don’t. Early Access has been wonderful for that", said Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie.

It’s clear that InXile Entertainment take their fans’ opinions very seriously, which should be greatly reflected in Torment when it releases on February 28th. Although it’s interesting to hear how the writers managed to juggle their own ideas with those of the community.

“As a writer you want to tell a story but as a gamer you want to play the game… We looked at every piece of feedback that came in and we didn’t implement all of it, but we made an honest effort to understand where it was coming from”, said Colin McComb.

So Early Access appears to have created an amicable relationship between Torment’s fans and the developer. Although there are times when this doesn't work out so well for other developers. We asked InXile whether they would recommend that other developers use Early Access for their titles and what sort of approach they should take when doing so.

"I would recommend it if they are willing to support it and are willing to listen to feedback. I know a lot of developers use it just as a way to bring in additional income, which is valid, but only if they’re planning on releasing the final game with the feedback they’ve taken from people", said Colin McComb.

Kickstarter and Early Access appear to have worked well for InXile Entertainment so far and it looks like they may continue down this route with the development of their future titles.

Check out our first impressions preview for Torment: Tides of Numenera right here.