Developer of survival MMO Last Oasis explains why they're launching a new early access survival game before they finish their last one: 'It was either that or shutting down'

Survival MMO Last Oasis has had a bumpy ride in early access. Launched in 2020, the nomadic MMO where players construct massive walking bases to travel across a dying planet instantly became a Steam top seller—but it had so many server problems its developer, Donkey Crew, had to take it offline for a week. 

That was the first of several speed bumps for Last Oasis, as over the years the player count dropped, review scores dipped, and the player base became divided between those who wanted a brutal PvP experience and others who wished the MMO was more PvE-focused. Updates and seasonal content were released, but at times the studio would fall silent for as long as a year, frustrating fans.

Today Last Oasis is still in early access with no 1.0 version in sight, but last year Donkey Crew announced it was developing a new early access open world survival game: medieval village-building RPG Bellwright. This announcement doesn't sit well with some Last Oasis players, who wonder: why is Donkey Crew making another early access survival game when their first one isn't finished yet?

«The reality is, it was either that or shutting down,» Last Oasis and Bellwright project lead Florian Hofreither told me last week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

«Last Oasis sold initially okay,» Hofreither said, «but after a while, with the reviews going down and playerbase going down, it made no money anymore. So the three options were fire 90% of my studio, or we start a new game, which then has the hopes of bringing in further money. Or, we just shut everything down.»

[Players] wish we would just continue Last Oasis. But that was simply not an option.

Hofreither said that launching a new game was clearly the best choice for him and his studio—but he also thinks it's the way forward for Last Oasis. Provided Bellwright is successful in early access, Hofreither said «we hope to resume development» on Last Oasis, at least eventually.

«I understand why players are angry,» he