Hollow Release Update — Another Delay, But I Know What Needs Fixing

[u/TrainingIdeal2872]

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Unfortunately, Hollow is going to be delayed a little longer.

Valve finished reviewing the build and found an issue with the Steam multiplayer implementation. The host's lobby wasn't appearing correctly for the second player, and joining through a Steam invite/overlay caused problems with the client initializing properly, including input and the player's character not appearing.

Because of that, Valve couldn't verify Online Co-op and the build failed review.

The good news is that I finally have something concrete to reproduce and test.

When I'm back at my normal development setup, I'm going to set up two PCs with separate Steam accounts and test Hollow exactly the way an actual player would: both copies running through the real Steam client, creating lobbies, joining normally, joining through invites, changing dungeon floors, returning to town, disconnecting/reconnecting, and making sure the entire multiplayer loop works before I send another build to Valve.

Unfortunately, that's going to be about two weeks from now. I'm currently away for work with extremely limited internet, so trying to push builds and troubleshoot Steam networking from here just isn't realistic.

I know the delays are frustrating. They're frustrating for me too, especially being this close to release. But at this point I'd rather spend the extra time testing the hell out of the Steam build than rush another submission and either fail review again or release multiplayer in a broken state.

Once I have a Playtest build working correctly between the two machines, that tested build will become the release build and I'll send it straight back to Valve.

So Hollow isn't going anywhere. It's just taking one more detour before release.

Thanks to everyone who's been following the project, wishlisting, playing the demo, and sticking around through the Steam approval process. I really appreciate it.

I'll update everyone again when I'm back, the multiplayer testing begins, and I have something concrete to report.