Open-world survival sandbox will be available via a closed playtest starting in Q1 2027

4J Studios has announced that its open-world survival sandbox Reforj will be available on PC via a closed playtest starting in Q1 2027.

The news was revealed yesterday at Game Republic New Horizons, during an interview with 4J Studios' Chris van der Kuyl and Joseph "Stampy" Garrett at the conference's VIP reception.

4J Studios shared further details with GamesIndustry.biz, including that the playtest will initially be invite-only "to ensure an optimised player experience" while the studio continues to update Reforj based on player feedback.

The developer has not confirmed which platform will host the closed playtest, but will provide this information later in the year with a full announcement.

During the session, Garrett emphasised the importance of early access, especially for a game like Reforj.

"The things I try to get across for why I think this is a bit different from the more traditional early access route are two main reasons," said Garrett. "The first one I think is just how early we got it in players' hands. We announced it when we had a prototype, so it was only nine months after development on the actual game began, and we literally had a world that could be generated, and it was creative mode building.

"There were no survival elements, there were no threats, there was a building. And that's when we announced it, and the very next day after announcing it, we had it in a select group of community members' hands and got them playing.

"And then the other way we communicate with the community is every single week we are going through all of the feedback, and we get a lot of it on the Discord, but once again it's not filtered through a community team. It goes directly to Paddy Burns, the CEO and director, and Tom Fyfe, the lead designer. We're going through all of these feedback points, and often it ends up with changes going into the game the next week."

The game is currently available to early testers on Xbox Series X|S through its Insider Program. "Xbox really gives you the ability to bring in an audience super early and on a totally solid hardware spec, so you're not getting confused by bug reports coming in and compatibility [issues]."

"It allowed us to have a bit of a safe space because everyone out there is a citizen journalist. As soon as you put something out in the world on PC, it may get shared early on. We knew what was coming from our audience, our fans that love 4J and love what 4J did with what they call the legacy console edition. We wanted to make sure that when we really unleashed it on PC, the game was going to be ready for it."

In addition to the early access launch of Reforj, 4J recently debuted a technology called Rixels, which offers an alternative way to provide textures while using a fraction of the memory.

Rixels are integrated into 4J's proprietary Elements Engine. As creative director Brian Gomez explained to GamesIndustry.biz, the studio developed this engine to create its own sandbox games after porting Minecraft to consoles and handhelds.

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