Everwild May Not Release in 2024, But That’s a Good Thing

Highlights

• Everwild’s development has been rocky and may not be ready for players until 2025, but rushing its release could be unwise.
• Rare’s success with Sea of Thieves makes Everwild’s open-world promise exciting, but bugs must be ironed out well before it ever releases.
• With 2024 already packed with big game releases, waiting until 2025 or beyond may help Everwild build anticipation and relevance.

Rare teased a beautiful, ethereal adventure game entitled Everwild back in 2019. The trailer features a lush natural world populated by strange creatures that players protect, care for, and work alongside. This new IP from Rare is allegedly like nothing players have seen from it before, but the specifics remain mysterious. The development of the game has apparently been rocky, and no official release window has been given. Rumors in 2021 indicated that Everwild might be ready for players in 2024, but this seems both unlikely and perhaps unwise.

Everwild’s Wild Development History

Rare is best known for making some of the 90s’ most popular games, like the Banjo-Kazooie series, GoldenEye 007, and Donkey Kong Country. The developer cemented its continued relevance with 2018’s Sea of Thieves, a swashbuckling action-adventure game that allows players to play pirate with their friends. After the success of Sea of Thieves, creating an open-world game like Everwild seemed like a natural next step for Rare. This game, however, has had many obstacles to overcome during its development.

One of the first pieces of news released about the mysterious game’s development was the departure of its creative director, Simon Woodroffe. Woodroffe’s role was subsequently filled, but it is unclear how much work had been done, or had yet to be done, on Everwild. Following the installment of a new senior creative director, Everwild was allegedly soft rebooted with developers “starting from scratch.” That was in 2021, and since then development on the project has been described as “a mess.”

Slow and Steady Will Win the Race for Everwild

Therefore, it might be for the best if Rare does not rush to release Everwild. If Everwild wants to have a large-scale, multiplayer world, as was alleged by one programmer working on the game, then Rare would do well to take its time and work out all the bugs before beta. Sea of Thieves had some infamous game-breaking problems upon release, eroding players’ trust in the game’s ability to deliver on its promises of multiplayer adventures.

2024 is Already a Stacked Year without Everwild

It is a pity when a good game is overlooked because a larger, more anticipated title is released on the same day. For example, Alan Wake was released on the same day as Red Dead Redemption. Both games are worthy in their own right, but the Rockstar title outshined the Remedy game. In 2024, there are plenty of open-world games that could threaten Everwild‘s relevance should Rare push to release the game this year, including but not limited to:

• Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (January 30)
• Skull and Bones (February 16)
• Dragon’s Dogma 2 (March 22)
• Rise of the Ronin (March 22)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl (September 5)
• Avowed (Late 2024)

While these games might not match the whimsical vibes of Everwild, they are still big titles with big worlds that will eat up gamers’ attention. By waiting for 2025, or even beyond, Everwild can build up to a highly anticipated release.

Everwild has huge potential as an Xbox exclusive created by a historic studio, but much of the game remains mysterious. Hopefully, Rare will take its time in releasing this game. 2024 may bring news about the development of Everwild but is unlikely to feature its release, and yet that could be for the best.