Aethon Interactive

Update on SCP: Sigil, new Patreon tiers, reckoning with SCP Unity

Added 2022-01-23 17:46:00 +0000 UTC

Hi everyone! We’re writing this post to update you on some big things such as the plan for SCP: Sigil, updates to the Patreon, and more!

An update on our situation

On this day at around this time one year ago, SCP Unity was announced as cancelled. It is at that point, that Aethon Collective, Project Aethon back then, really came to life. It has been a tough year for a lot of us, especially those like myself (Corvus) who had to find a footing in other ways.

It has taken some time, but we are now finally at a point where we feel ready to really put the pedal to the metal. We’ve been working throughout the past year on coming up with a lot of great concepts for the game and everyone’s been researching, getting familiar with and learning new ways to create with the new engine and coding language. Despite what we have let on, a lot has happened and we want to involve you now as we officially enter from pre-production into production very soon.

The plan for SCP: Sigil

Because we don’t want this game to go into a development hell in which it will take forever to release until every single possible feature we might want to add has been added, we are making a conscious decision to limit the scope of the game until we know it is something people enjoy. “Scope creep” was a serious issue in the development of SCP Unity and we seek to prevent it with this plan for development and release of SCP: Sigil.

We seek to release a fully playable demo that functions as a full game by Summer 2023. This demo will have all of the core gameplay features we feel are necessary and feature a couple of cycles of the complete gameplay loop. The demo will also have a proper start and end point to really make it work as a full game instead of ending abruptly during gameplay like some demos might. This demonstration of SCP: Sigil will be released on Steam for everyone to play for free!

After the release of this demo we want to see what the community response to the game is. We have a lot of ideas on our minds that are not going to be put into the demo because of the aforementioned limiting of the scope, so if there is a positive resonance in response to the demo and an interest in more of it, we will continue developing SCP: Sigil into a bigger game for commercial sale with all of that additional content!

While the essential gameplay will of course remain the same between the demo and the potential full game, the story and player character will not, so you don’t have to worry about experiencing the exact same dialogue and progression again!

Patreon Revamp

Now onto the Patreon - we’ve finally expanded and added more tiers with exciting perks!

The new tiers are: Inscription ($5), Follower ($10) and Witness ($20). Each of the tiers gives you varying levels of recognition, content direct from the development of the game as well as interaction with us and what we’re making. For more details, check out our front page!

The new perks have already received content on the Patreon page as well as in our Discord server, so be sure to check them out if you pick up one of these new tiers! For example, the Follower tier and up get access to an exclusive blog about the lore of the game and some of our planned concepts.

The original $2 tier is staying under a new name: “Legacy”. All of its perks will remain the same.

There are a few perks we are thinking about adding in the feature, such as early access to builds closer to release and chance of selection as blind testers. Also, if after the demo the full game goes ahead, if your lifetime donations to the Patreon exceed the chosen price of the game, you will of course receive the game for free.

We have also updated our About Us summary and added goals to the page, be sure to check them out.

SCP Unity: a brief post-mortem

A year ago, SCP Unity was officially publicly cancelled. We as the developers had only learnt of this five days prior. It is important to understand the shock that this caused, with the reality of losing the opportunity to work on a project you’ve been working on for years and being thrust into a situation of your current life becoming unsustainable without great changes looming directly over you. However, it has become time to close the book on SCP Unity and move forward.

Despite a lot of the stories we have told of things that were going wrong in the project, it must not be forgotten that the project also had its upsides. It was genuinely exciting to work on it a lot of times and being a part of the team and a supportive community was truly honouring. We remain proud of the work that we have done and for the fun that the project did provide to people.

But further, after its cancellation and us beginning to work on this new project, there was an overwhelming and refreshing feeling of unrestricted creativity and eagerness and new-found excitement that had been lacking for a while with SCP Unity. Overall, we have come out of it pretty well and the path we’re taking now has a lot of our hopes up for a great future.

Regardless, on Sunday, the 30th of January, we will hold a Q&A as part of the Witness ($20) tier on anything to do with SCP Unity for people to ask some questions that have been burning on their mind. Additionally, the full soundtrack as well as reuploads of the trailers made for SCP Unity will be released on Sunday, the 20th of March.