Plenty of developers have shuffled around their release dates to avoid brushing shoulders with GTA 6, which is shaping up to be the biggest video game launch of all time. But publisher Hooded Horse isn’t worried about releasing its medieval management sim Blacksmith Master into 1.0 on November 19 – in fact, it’s apparently a deliberate strategy.
The Manor Lords publisher is gearing up to push Blacksmith Master out of the early access fire on the same day as Rockstar Games’ mammoth open-world romp. To most other companies, that’s a recipe for disaster. To Hooded Horse, it’s no biggie.
“Aren’t we worried about GTA releasing the same day? But actually it’s a strategy — people looking to steal cars and gun down their enemies searching for a PC release will instead discover they actually want to control little dudes hammering horseshoes,” Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender wrote in a recent LinkedIn post.
“Jokes aside, GTA will have absolutely no effect on Blacksmith Master’s release,” he added. “No harm at all. Indie devs are too worried about launching around this or that big game. Sure, don’t launch your AAA console-focused action-adventure on Nov 19, but otherwise no reason to worry.”
GTA 6’s launch pushed plenty of big name games out of the normally very busy November period. Look at our new games calendar and you’ll see lots of blockbuster games tightly crammed into September, sometimes with a few days between each of them. Even the Fable reboot’s director recently implied that GTA was responsible for its delay into next year.
While avoiding the big behemoth in the room, too many video games probably moved right next to their direct competition. Perhaps cozy medieval management games about running a smithy and forging war tools don’t need to hide away – we’ll find out how Blacksmith Master does when it hits 1.0 on Steam.