Firefly Studios has delayed Real-time strategy / city builder sequel Stronghold 4 from its previously planned Early Access release date of December 7, 2026 to April 20, 2027. It will be available for PC via Steam.
Here is the full message from Firefly Studios studio head Nick Tannahill:
Today we have some good news and some bad news. Well, actually the bad news might be good news. It kind of depends on who you ask.
We are heeding your words and taking more time to develop Stronghold 4 by shifting the game’s Early Access release date to April 20, 2027. This decision didn’t come easily, but it is absolutely the right thing to do for the game. We need to ensure that you’re having an amazing time with Stronghold 4 and that it’s something we’re super proud of from day one. It has always been our goal to launch into Early Access with as much polished content as possible, giving ourselves enough time after that to add more to the game and work on your feedback before version 1.0. By launching on April 20, we can be sure that you get a full story campaign, custom skirmish, a skirmish trail, free build, and everything else we intended for the initial release. And yes, I am aware of the irony of putting this out just after we announced our old release date.
So, let’s get to the good news and more about why we’re shifting our date. The first and most obvious reason is just that we get more time to work on it. In particular, all the feedback we received from Next Fest for the skirmish and free build missions. Now, obviously, our second public demo doesn’t have all the available units or finished enemy behavior, but we still got loads of great feedback, and we want to address as much of that as possible before launch. Our new date has the added benefit of allowing us to avoid what is already an incredibly busy holiday release schedule for games.
And we just need more time overall. Game dev is hard to predict, and certain aspects of the game’s design and implementation have just taken longer than expected. Now, this extra time also means that we can get more into the game than if we released it on December 7. For instance, we had planned for one of our updates during Early Access to include the game’s economic campaign, which I’m now pleased to say will be coming at launch. Sim and economic gameplay is at the heart of Stronghold, so we weren’t loving the idea of launching without this, and thankfully the extra time means we can ship with it on April 20.
Of course, there will be other additions as well. So, please stay tuned here on YouTube for updates on Stronghold 4 development in the coming weeks and months. The extra time also gives us more opportunity to deep dive into all the cool things that Stronghold 4 brings to the table. So, you can expect plenty more videos like the feature on castle customization and economy. This will be followed by similar deep cuts on story, siegecraft, the game’s two campaigns, custom skirmish, villages, weather, and more. If these videos sound interesting to you, then please do wishlist the gameon Steam. There you’ll be notified of any features and of course when the game launches into Early Access on April 20, 2027. Apologies to that one player who was really excited about us releasing the game on their birthday. You’ll just have to have a second birthday on April 20. I’m sorry.
Watch the video message below.