The two weeks of public testing flew by day after day.
During the first three days, Ichin had been watching the game's online player numbers closely, witnessing with his own eyes as the count grew from just over ten thousand at launch to a peak of three hundred thousand in the final days.
For Fall Guys, still only in a network test stage, this was nothing short of miraculous.
Sitting in his office, Ichin stroked his chin as he read through the endless stream of reviews and comments about the game. After some thought, he called Hazuki into his office.
"What is it, Ichin?"
Facing her across the desk, Ichin asked:
"Hazuki, how do you feel about the current stability of Fall Guys' servers during the network test?"
"Quite stable," Hazuki answered with a smile. "Apart from a few regions with occasional connection hiccups, most areas are smooth and stable, with very acceptable latency. Why the sudden question? Do you have a plan in mind?"
"An early release. What do you think?"
"Early release?!"
Ichin nodded and handed her the tablet filled with data from the test period.
"Honestly, the popularity and player count for Fall Guys exceeded my expectations. The peak reached three hundred thousand concurrent players. We had to activate every prepared server just to keep things stable. With hype this strong, there's no need for a second test—we should just launch."
Hazuki was still stunned when Ichin snapped his fingers with a grin.
"That settles it, doesn't it? We never actually announced a release date anyway. So instead of doing a second network test, let's just announce the launch. Let's see… it's mid-June now. We'll set the release date for July 10th, a Friday. The first day should bring in excellent numbers."
"Since you, the boss, have decided, I can't really object."
After taking a moment to think, Hazuki realized he was right—this momentum couldn't be wasted, it had to be leveraged.
"So that means we have half a month left to prepare?"
"Exactly. Half a month. Luckily, we held back a portion of content from the test, and more is still in development. By launch, there'll be plenty of content. Also, push the entire post-launch update schedule forward a bit. This year, before Titanfall releases, Fall Guys must keep its grip on popularity. Then next year, Dark Souls and Apex can take over."
"Got it. I'll inform the dev team."
Soon after Hazuki left, the company's official accounts across the web announced the news: Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout would officially release on July 10th. The Steam price was set at 8.15 USD(~1205 Yen), with similar pricing across other regions and platforms.
Given the fun already proven in testing, plus the announced previews of map and skin counts, buying the game at that price was more than worth it.
The day after the announcement, pre-orders opened across platforms. Pre-orders on Steam and Switch shot up quickly.
Steam was no surprise—it was their home base, with a massive PC player base and consistently solid optimization. Players were happy to buy there.
Console sales were also strong, especially on Switch, thanks to its portability. While it couldn't match Steam's numbers, Switch still broke over 100,000 online players during testing.
The only thing Fall Guys didn't achieve was full cross-platform play. It would've been too costly and troublesome for the payoff. Still, crossplay between Steam and Epic Games Store was enabled.
Of course, whether many would actually buy on Epic was another question—even Ichin mostly logged into Epic just to claim freebies.
Within just three days of pre-orders, Fall Guys had already sold over half a million copies across all platforms.
For an always-online multiplayer party game that couldn't appeal to everyone, this was already an outstanding figure. When the game released and live operations began, maintaining a healthy player base would be enough.
Just then, the office door opened. Utaha walked in, came over, and patted Ichin on the shoulder.
"Ichin, I have a question."
He looked up from his notes, where he had been drafting detailed system specs for GARO.
"Hm? What is it?"
"Since Fall Guys is launching next month, doesn't that mean the skins I earned in the test won't carry over to a second test?"
"That's right. There won't be a second test."
Ichin nodded with a smile.
"Don't worry, though. When the game officially launches, there'll be even more fun skins. You can grind for those."
Utaha's lips twitched. She spun his chair around, sat directly on his lap, and looked him in the eye.
"Can't you just transfer my save data into the official release?"
"Well, technically I could… but you didn't grind that many skins. If I remember right, only five?"
Utaha pressed her hands against his cheeks.
"That's because you didn't play! You have no idea how much time those five skins cost me! Except for one cheap one, the other four each needed five crowns! It was easy at first, but as time went on and players got better, winning crowns became harder and harder!"
"Alright, alright, I get it!"
Ichin gently pulled her hands down and said with a wry smile:
"When the game releases, just go talk to Hazuki. She'll sort it out for you. Even if you wanted all the skins outright, it wouldn't be a problem."
"That's not necessary. I just want the ones I already worked for—I don't want to grind them all over again."
Satisfied with his answer, Utaha smiled sweetly, leaned in to kiss him, and then hopped off his lap.
"I'm going to check what new skins are coming!"
Watching her leave, Ichin chuckled and shook his head.
This game's skins really did have a strong appeal for girls.
*