The A44 Games-developed cooperative action RPG Ashen released on Xbox One and the newly-launched Epic Games Store as an exclusive on PC last year. Today, the developer announced that the game would be coming to more platforms on December 9 this year, a little more than a year after the original launch.
On that date, In addition to the previous two platforms, Ashen is launching on Steam and GOG - ending the Epic exclusivity - as well as PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. The game was also supposed to be an Xbox Play Anywhere title with a Microsoft Store launch for Windows 10 before it suddenly headed to the Epic Games Store. We will have to wait and see if these plans will be resumed.
For those unfamiliar with Ashen, here is the cooperative title"s store description:
As you adventure through Ashen, you"ll occasionally encounter other players in a massive open world, akin to the passive multiplayer of Journey. It"s up to you to decide how to deal with them - fight together against evil, invite them into your party or simply ignore them.
Ashen is faithful to the "souls" genre of stamina-based combat, introducing players to a punishing yet satisfyingly vast world. But here’s the twist - no two gameplay experiences are alike. Whether you’re exploring bogs, investigating a fjord or pillaging an old palace, where you are at any given moment will dramatically alter the course of your adventure. It"s a brutal open world; you"re just living in it.
This announcement arrives only a few days after Supergiant Games revealed that its own Epic exclusive, Hades, would be coming to Steam on December 10.
Both Ashen and Hades were launch titles for the Epic Games Store last year, so them being the first games to announce their arrival to other platforms make sense as their one-year exclusivity periods are slowly nearing their end. tinyBuild Games" Hello Neighbor: Hide & Seek is now the sole remaining Epic Games Store launch title without a Steam release date, but that may change soon also.
Although some will be happy to find Epic exclusives finally rolling out on other PC platforms starting this December, we will have to wait and see how the general gaming community greets these titles.