Pokémon-alike Temtem is slowly winding down, and developer Crema says the game will stop receiving "feature-filled updates" in the near future.
The MMO's 1.8 update will come sans Seasons or a cosmetic battle pass, and there'll be no future Seasons. With June's 1.7 update, all of Temtem's microtransactions will be removed.
Like Palworld, Temtem was made in the shadow of Pokémon: players gather monsters and pit them against others. Unlike Palworld, however, Temtem is gun-free.
Crema understood the game's monetization system was "out of place," and atypical from other live-service games. The battle pass (or Tamer Pass) was meant to "increase player engagement and retention," but those plans didn't work out.
While Crema reassured players that nothing was removed from the game to lock behind the Tamer Pass, it understood how divisive the mechanic was.
"[We] have come to understand your position on Temtem having microtransactions as it drifts further from a live-service game," it wrote. "For this, we sincerely apologize."
The 1.8 update will let players use in-game currency to buy previous Tamer Passes and complete them, similar to Halo Infinite. Crema said it's learned plenty from this whole ordeal, and will keep this in mind for future projects.
When it first launched on Steam Early Access in 2020, it wasn't long before Temtem sold 500,000 copies. But its 1.0 debut in 2022 came and went, and Crema seems unclear on where to go from here.
Temtem 2 is currently out of the question. Put plainly, the studio admitted it lacks the resources for such a project where the "stakes are high."
Instead, the team is working on a new project in the Temtem universe. Known as Project Downbelow, Crema was quick to say it's not a full sequel or the previously revealed Temtem: Swarm.
Chiefly, Downbelow will allow Crema to "build new foundations" and test out potential Temtem 2 ideas. It's also angling to turn the game into an animated series, similar to...well, Pokémon.
Regardless, Crema stressed that it was proud of how far Temtem came and its future. Its full thoughts on the game, including how it was hampered by its MMO label, can be read here.
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