Spintires, the exploration and offroading game that kicked up some dust on Kickstarter, is back. Fans were left with nothing but uncertainty after the various communication channels for the game went silent for a long period. The situation got a little more tense after the first updates people began to hear were rumors and accusations of rough dealings between the developer and publisher behind the project. It even looked like the project might have been dead entirely. Although now, it seems like the storm has passed and development has resumed.
Pavel Zagrebelnyy, the developer actually behind the game, had been previously working with UK publisher Oovee to help market and refine the game. It appears as though there had been some brewing tension over various issues, chief among these was that Oovee Game Studios had failed to pay him many times, in addition to ignoring his attempts at contact. And while it didn’t lead to Zagrebelnyy going bankrupt, it certainly hurt the relationship. There’s still a ton of work to be done on the game, as Spintires still needs a lot of bug fixes. The game is also lacking key features that would keep players engaged, such as a more varied map and deeper mission structure. Future updates are planned though, so be on the lookout for that.
Publisher Oovee was quick to respond to both the fans and Pavel. The company also says that they’ve paid the programmer his missing dues and will continue to support his work, and Spintires. “Our customer base grew far beyond what we initially expected and we needed to cater for that quickly – the development plans became sketchy and before we knew it we had a runaway train. Please accept our apologies,” said the company in a statement.
The next big addition is slated to be mod support, which will likely help revitalize support for the project. Spintires is also getting a sequel at some point, as suggested by Oovee and the rumors rumbling around.
Fans seem to have overlooked the hiccup, and seem content to going back to this strange hybrid of offroading, Eurotruck Simulator and mud. Only time will tell if things remain stable in this particular rocky development cycle.
If the idea of driving really big trucks through muddy swamps sounds like fun to you, Spintires can be bought on Steam now.
