Nobody likes a delay. There's no two ways about it – both the creatives behind a project and the fans eagerly waiting to get their hands on it are left disappointed. If you've been waiting for the fantasy business sim Tavern Keeper I've got some bad news. Giving you control of where every great DnD adventure starts, with a dash of Stardew Valley and a Baldur's Gate 3-like setting, you're going to have to wait a little longer for this one, but with good reason.
If you're familiar with Tavern Keeper enough. A decade in the making, you need to run the tavern that so many adventurers stumble across. Place every fork, move every table, and keep that larder stocked (you never know when a merry band of dwarves will come for dinner.)
While your business will be hectic, developer Greenheart Games doesn't want that to cross over into the actual experience of playing. That's why Tavern Keeper has been delayed.
"Perhaps surprisingly, given the announcement, the game at the moment is actually in a good state," Greenheart Games writes. "All mechanics are implemented. It is content complete, has full English voice over, and all translations should be ready within the week. The tutorial works great, the early access campaign (and stories) are fun and you'd likely have a great time playing it if, and this is the crucial point, you know how to avoid a number of existing pitfalls."
These pitfalls include staff getting stuck forever, tough mechanical interactions, and confusing UI elements. "In short: the likelihood that you would get frustrated while playing is currently a little too high for a great first experience," Greenheart says. The Tavern Keeper team assures that all these issues, given time, are solvable. That said, trying to smooth out all these wrinkles and still hit the current November release date would "likely have burned out the team in the process."
To avoid that problem, especially ahead of a long Steam Early Access journey, Greenheart Games is pushing Tavern Keeper back. A new release window will be announced sometime next year, when the team is ready. While a delay always hurts, I appreciate how open Greenheart Games is. We've been given the exact reasons for the delay, and told that while Tavern Keeper could launch on time, it's not good for the long-term health of the team and game.
You can still give the Tavern Keeper demo a try on Steam right here, but the release date has been pushed back into 2025.
As Tavern Keeper pushes further into our list of the biggest best indie games available now.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.