Today was supposed to be the launch day for KartKraft’s Early Access version on Steam and while the new title won’t launch as planned, Zach Griffin has release a new dev blog and some new preview images to go along with it.

There’s only one way to start this post, and that’s to apologise for the way we handled the delay of ‪#‎KartKraft‬ Early Access. Our lack of communication was simply not good enough, and we need to make sure it doesn’t occur again.

During the ongoing Closed Beta Test, we’ve been working with our dedicated community testers to improve every aspect of KartKraft. In just the past 48 hours, the most recent wave of the CBT group have completed 28,665 laps of Geelong onboard the IAME ‪#‎KA100‬ powered karts with testers from 37 different countries.

With an incredible response to the game during the entire CBT period, we’ve received highly detailed feedback and suggestions that we’ve been able to include in the weekly CBT releases. From the Force Feedback, Physics, Lighting, UX and UI, Wheel support, Triple screen support and overall level of performance, there’s not one component of the game we haven’t worked on and improved; with over 1600 fixes/features/improvements made during the past 10 weeks.

The CBT has also highlighted some key features and performance issues on lower end hardware that must be fixed before we release #KartKraft. Thus we have decided to extend the CBT period and release date by approximately 8 weeks to ensure KartKraft meets and exceeds your expectations on Day 1, even as an Early Access game. We will make a further announcement to confirm the exact release date in the coming weeks.

We will also be increasing the number of testers in the CBT and sending out additional waves beyond the initial allocation to make sure more of you are able to participate in the testing. (Those who were part of Thursday’s Beta wave who are still having issues redeeming your Steam Key, please expect an email with an updated key on Tuesday next week. We are currently working with Valve to resolve the issue.)

Finally, to those who are still awaiting a response to their recent emails and messages, please expect a slight delay in receiving a reply. We are currently working through a backlog of 3000+ messages from the past two days.