Subliminal - A Look Ahead

Hey everyone, it's been a while!

To start off, we would like to once again thank everyone who has played Episode 1 so far.

From your streams, videos, reviews, feedback, and more -- we've enjoyed seeing your experiences and feedback, and have continued to look over as much of it as possible to continue improving Episode 1 and our future titles.

That being said, it's been awhile, and there's a lot to talk about as we look ahead into where we're going with Subliminal!

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Where Have We Been?

Before anything else, we'd like to explain where we've been the last few months, as many of you may have noticed a decrease in our activities, as well as pausing active updates to Episode 1.

Part of this comes from the fact that, as a smaller team, most of our efforts are almost entirely concentrated on the development of Subliminal itself. (Its next update to Episode 1, The Archives, Episode 2, and Console Ports)

The other part comes from one of our bigger mis-steps as a team and in promoting Episode 1, that being showcasing more of one facet of the game rather than the others. (Visuals vs Gameplay as an example)

This is in addition to a lot of our earlier marketing giving a mis-matched initial impression of the game. (Backrooms-based as we initially started out vs Backrooms-inspired as time went on)

Given its longer development time, Subliminal has gone through numerous development stages and various theming changes, which has led to a lot of misinformation over time, in addition to repeated instances of changing release dates as it evolved into its episodic format.

In those aspects, we have been internally discussing the best route forward in future representation of Subliminal, both to properly represent its theme, and to provide a balance in what is showcased going forward on our socials.

For our active updates to Subliminal, v1.0.3.x was developed in-parallel with the next update as well as The Archives, up until the point where it was no longer feasible and most issues with it were resolved.

That being said, active updates to Episode 1 will be continuing with the release of its next update!

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Our Next Update

As we originally discussed in our roadmap back in April, our original goals showcased v1.1 as our next update following v1.0.3.x, as a more substantial narrative overhaul in how Caleb's story is delivered to the player.

While our original goal was to release this update (alongside The Archives) later this month, we have made the decision to postpone both updates to Early 2027.

Our primary reasoning behind this comes from correspondence with our Debuggers, Playtesters, Creators, and internally among the team over the last month, where the result was that v1.1 needs additional time to ensure that its content meets everyone's expectations, and to ensure a fully polished and stable release.

While The Archives is officially content-complete, we are also using the additional time to improve the quality of the returning levels, and (like v1.1) ensure that its quality and stability is meeting the expected benchmarks we've set.

That being said, we don't plan to leave everyone empty-handed this month:

Releasing on October 19th, active updates to Episode 1 will be resuming with the release of v1.0.9, which will include ALL of the non-narrative content updates we've had building up since v1.0.3.x stopped in June.

What's Included

• Upgrading from Unreal Engine 5.7 to 5.8, including support for Lumen Lite in a new Low graphics preset and other performance improvements • A completely revamped settings menu, with over thirty new settings and new descriptions for many other settings • Initial HDR support, with more options coming in v1.0.9.x • Improved Controller Support, including vibration support • New in-between checkpoints spread throughout the Episode, allowing players to get back to where they were quicker through a new option in Memory Load • New post-game content with the Modifiers system, including Developer Commentary • A revamped ending for one of the alternative paths in the Episode • The return of several pieces of cut-content • And over 150+ fixes and quality-of-life improvements to all current Episode 1 content!

More details about all of these features are available in our v1.0.9 Overview, for those who wish to learn more!

Changes to Update Delivery

Additionally, moving forward we are making a few changes to how we'll be delivering updates:

• Starting today, a new previous_release branch is now available in the Game Versions tab, allowing players to rollback to the prior release, updated whenever a new release is available. 　◦ Since the current update, as of writing, is v1.0.3.5, this branch contains the v1.0.3.4 release 　◦ This branch will also be available for players on the Demo version of Episode 1 　◦ For some downgrades, please backup any important save data beforehand, as downgrading save files is not officially supported, and in some cases may lead to major issues. • Beginning with the release of v1.0.9 and applicable to ALL major updates going forward, we are going to also be opening up a new preview branch, for those that wish to take an early look at these updates. 　◦ This branch will match the same build as the main Steam branch, but when applicable, will provide an early look at future major updates a few days prior to release 　◦ For v1.0.9, the preview branch will contain a release-candidate build on October 16th 　◦ While these builds will generally be close to release conditions, minor issues may exist on this branch. While feedback is appreciated, do keep this in mind and be sure to backup any important save data before using this branch. 　◦ This branch will only be available for the full release of Episode 1, not the Demo version.

Going forward, and as mentioned before, v1.0.9 will be receiving active updates in-parallel with v1.1 and The Archives, up until the point v1.1 reaches its content-complete state and we're ready to announce its release date alongside The Archives.

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The Archives

To those that are unaware, The Archives was originally announced in December on our other platforms, and is a supplemental upgrade to Episode 1 to showcase Subliminal's unused environments, music, lore, and other concepts that didn't make it into Episode 1. (A museum of sorts showcasing as much as possible about Subliminal)

We've been pretty quiet about The Archives since then, and part of that was not only focusing on repairing and remastering these unused and older environments to the newer v1.1 backend, but also to ensure that -- when we were ready -- we'd only be showcasing content from it that was in a finalized (or near-finalized) form to ensure we don't repeat our past mistakes.

That being said, the time has finally come to share more about it!

Firstly, as mentioned earlier, our original goal was to release The Archives this month, though following internal review and correspondence with others, we decided to postpone this release to Early 2027, to ensure its quality and stability meets both our (and your) expectations.

Features

With The Archives, we have the opportunity to showcase not only unused content, but content from Subliminal's older stages of development -- the latter of which we've wanted to address for a while now, given that Episode 1 didn't match the more Liminal (Backrooms) scope originally presented back in 2023 and 2024 primarily.

That said, the following levels will be making a return with The Archives, faithfully ported and remastered for UE5.8 and leveraging the improvements/fixes made up to v1.1:

Returning Levels

• Infinite Interstate • The Metro • The Hotel • The Waterpark • Pipe Dreams • The Factory (Interior) • Poolrooms (Sublimity) • Old Playplace • Old Basement

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[/carousel] While we are aware of other requested content, this list was decided based on its portability, as well as from how much content the original level intentions had. (As some older levels were either very short, purely visual, or otherwise relied on systems that no longer existed or would have to be entirely remade from scratch)

Additionally, The Archives will also feature a Museum level, as a centralized hub for these levels, as well as a way to show our non-level content -- entities, concepts, lore, music, and more!

How to Unlock

Similar to the post-game content being added in v1.0.9, The Archives can be unlocked by completing any of the main story endings, allowing the player to access the Museum and the other levels that are part of The Archives.

Additionally, if enabled, Developer Commentary will also be available throughout each of The Archives levels, to provide more of a behind-the-scenes look at the creation and inspiration of these levels, certain decisions, and in some cases, how some areas evolved moving towards Episode 1. (Such as Old Playplace)

Additional Info

As we mentioned before, we are aware of other content that players may be disappointed will not be appearing in The Archives, though for that we have a special surprise that has been in the works for many months now:

We are happy to be able to announce that, upon the release of The Archives in Early 2027, ALL previously enforced build NDAs for our older builds on Patreon will be voided.

Affected Builds

• Alpha 1.1 (01.27.2023) • Alpha 1.2 (02.06.2023) • Alpha 2.1 (02.25.2023) • Alpha 2.2 (03.20.2023) • Alpha 2.3 (03.29.2023) • Alpha 3 (06.24.2023) • Demo 1.1 (09.03.2024, mirror)

What This Means

• There will no longer be any restrictions towards posting any content from the older Patreon builds. • For those interested in trying out these builds, but didn't want to go through Patreon, these builds will be made available through either the Game Versions tab or through a mirror link that we'll make public.

Availability in most cases will be through Game Versions, though we'll have more info on how this'll work closer to when The Archives launches.

Do keep in mind, however, that many of these releases are from much earlier in Subliminal's development, and therefore do contain (in some cases) major issues, including performance-related issues, and are overall not representative of Subliminal's current quality standards.

Similar to the other Game Versions, please backup your save data before using any of these builds.

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Closing

Closing this post out, we want to once again thank everyone for their patience and support with Subliminal's development.

While it hasn't exactly been an easy road (for us or for our players), and there's been more than a few areas for us to improve upon, we're excited to share more updates coming soon, and we look forward to bringing v1.0.9, v1.1, The Archives, and more to players in the upcoming months!

Stay Tuned!