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March 2026 Developer Update
May 6, 2026 at 12:07 AM
Initial article on the March 2026 dev update video and the rebuild-from-scratch context
The March 2026 developer update for Blight: Survival was a short video published by Haenir Studio alongside the Future Games Show: Spring Showcase 2026 on March 12, 2026. The video featured Creative Director Ulrik Langvandsbråten thanking the community for the 1.5 million Steam wishlists milestone and laying out the studio's current development approach. It was the first dedicated developer update video since 2025.
The update video, paired with the Future Games Show deep-dive segment, communicated four points to the community:
Topic | Message |
|---|---|
Wishlist Milestone | Thanked the community for crossing 1.5 million Steam wishlists, the largest milestone for the project to date. |
Rebuild From Scratch | After partnering with Behaviour Interactive in 2024, the team rebuilt the game's core systems from the ground up rather than continuing on top of older code. The rebuild prioritises long-term quality over a faster release. |
Closed Playtests Now | Small-scale playtests are running on a closed, invitation-only basis with members recruited from the official Discord community. |
Public Playtests Later | Public playtests are confirmed for later in 2026 but no specific date has been announced. |
No 2026 Launch | The studio confirmed the game will not ship in 2026. Reveals, playtests, and content cadence will ramp up across the year, but a release date is still pending. |
Ulrik framed the rebuild in plain terms: when the studio paired with Behaviour Interactive, it became clear that the game's existing systems were not built for the scope and quality the partnership unlocked. Rather than ship a smaller version on the old foundation, the team chose to rework the core gameplay loop, combat, co-op infrastructure, and tooling. The trade-off is a longer development cycle in exchange for a stronger long-term product.
This explanation directly addressed long-running community speculation about why the game had been quiet for stretches of 2024 and 2025. The studio's earlier devlogs in September 2025 and December 2025 had hinted at foundational work; the March 2026 update articulated it explicitly.
Senior Creative Director Ashley Pannell echoed the same framing in his accompanying interview at the Future Games Show 2026: "We understand the heightened expectations of what we are being asked to deliver upon here." The studio's stated goal is to "prove that we are making a real game, that it is awesome." Ulrik also emphasised that the team has stayed in active contact with the community even during quieter public periods, running ongoing closed playtests with Discord members and folding feedback directly into the rebuild.
The update specifically did not include:
A release date, or even a release window beyond "not 2026"
A confirmed Early Access decision (still listed as "to be decided" in the official
Pre-order plans (the studio reaffirmed there are no current plans for pre-orders)
Final monetization details beyond the team's preference for a boxed-price model with DLC
A public playtest date
The March 2026 update is the public bookend on a development arc that began with the November 2022 reveal trailer, continued through team expansion in 2023, the Behaviour Interactive partnership in April 2024, foundational rebuild work across 2025, and the 1.5 million wishlist milestone in early 2026. See Development History for the full year-by-year timeline.
