We Happy Few is the tale of a plucky bunch of moderately terrible people trying to escape from a lifetime of cheerful denial in the city of Wellington Wells.

In this alternative 1960s England, conformity is key. You’ll have to fight or blend in with the drug-addled inhabitants, most of whom don’t take kindly to people who won’t abide by their not-so-normal rules.

Discover the retrofuturistic city’s dark history as you play through the intertwined narratives of three quietly rebellious citizens of Wellington Wells, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, as they face their pasts, prepare for the future, and engage in activities that aren’t exactly status quo in the artificially enthused society.

Today, Compulsion Games released a developer update video detailing what’s to come for We Happy Few, including a glimpse at the second playable character, Sally.

We Happy Few is now content complete, and the team is taking more time to polish following some major improvements to the beginning of Arthur’s storyline.

Originally scheduled for launch on April 13, 2018, We Happy Few will now release in Summer 2018 for Xbox One, PC, and PS4.

“There are these moments that are memorable, very funny, and super weird and we’re really excited to show you all” said Sam Abbott, Producer for We Happy Few. “But we felt that the first two hours of Arthur’s story just didn’t live up to those moments, meaning that the game didn’t start as well as it should. So we went back to the drawing board and made a couple of big decisions: we brought forward a number of story moments, to get into the action faster, and also rebuilt the whole first island for Arthur.”

Since its early days as a crowdfunding digital success, We Happy Few has continued to expand. With the help of Gearbox Publishing, its scope has been increased to include a full-length story campaign, three playable characters, and more than 250 unique encounters.

Compulsion Games and Gearbox Publishing will continue to provide weekly updates about the progress of the game.

We have also received feedback that some Steam players felt the new pre-purchase asking price didn’t mesh well with the game being categorized as Early Access. Given all the content we have yet to reveal to the public, we can see their point. That being said, we’ve done a huge amount of work and the scope of the game is substantially increasing over what’s there right now, which is a very unusual situation for Early Access games, especially as we have a retail release on the way.  What you guys see right now is definitely not what we see internally.

So, we find ourselves caught between Early Access (where it’s important to have a price that reflects the current game) and the eventual release of the full game with increased scope (which we believe reflects a traditional retail game). We had anticipated that Steam players would be okay with pre-purchase still granting early access, but since we won’t be offering any additional early access updates beyond August’s “Life in Technicolour”, we think having this labeled Early Access and charging the price of a larger game caused more confusion than we had hoped.  

We want to make sure everyone who plays the game is happy, so alongside our revised release date, we are doing two things:

1. Enabling refunds for all players who purchased on Steam, past and present, regardless of playtime. We’ll continue working to make sure 1.0 is great and something you’ll be happy buying.
2. Temporarily disabling the buy button on Steam as of February 1st, 2018. We don’t want new players to have the same frustration, so we’re temporarily disabling the option to buy on Steam, and will re-enable the buy button once we’re closer to launch when more info and materials on the game will have been released, giving players more clarity on what they can expect in the full version of We Happy Few.

Key Features

• A procedurally generated world: Each time you die or beat the game, your next adventure through Wellington Wells will be different. Forget about relying on the city's layout to escape!
• A sophisticated suspicion system: The inhabitants of Wellington Wells expect you to behave in very specific ways—if they suspect you're not taking your Joy, they'll quickly identify you as a Downer.
• Frenzied combat: Downers aren't very popular in Wellington Wells. In fact, Wellies tend to get a bit violent whenever one walks by.
• Twisted survival mechanics: In this urban setting, avoiding the Wellies' fury often means hiding in plain sight.
• An elaborate crafting system: Salvage supplies and Joy-tainted food to stay alive, but be careful not to overdose!

We Happy Few will be available both digitally and at retail for Xbox One, PC, and PS4 in Summer 2018.