We stayed quiet through most of August, heads down on our Screen Australia grant application, which is now submitted. A new creative director joined the team, Stage 3 moved from prototype into production and Stage 2 continued to receive playtest-driven polish.
The road to Early Access is firmly on track, and you can read all about it below.
A major grant application
We submitted a thorough application to Screen Australia's Games Production Fund and we're really excited regardless of the outcome. It's helped clarify our thinking, polish our roadmap and raise our professionalism to a standard that ensures our vision will be realised.
Siobhan Davis joined as creative director
Siobhan Davis is now the third name on FOXFIRE, contracted as creative director from August 2026. Art direction, the style guide, the enemy bestiary across stages, hull and weapon art, interface art, pilot animation and weapon-evolution animation are all being revamped under her experienced direction.
Siobhan brings the requisite skill-set to take FOXFIRE to the next level. Bridging the quality gap between our strong movement and systems and some of the earlier visual placeholders and prototypes.
Stage 3, the Ark Heist, is in production
Stage 3 has sat as an in-engine prototype for months. More of a floor plan we could walk through than a stage you could play on, but as of September through November it is going full throttle. It's called the Ark Heist, and it's the point of the campaign where we stop running and fly right into the thick of the action. Unique to space survivor-likes, this stage involves flying through a maze of procedurally generated compartments within a heavily defended space hulk.
Stage 2 play and polish
The Viridian Storm, Stage 2, is still undergoing vigorous testing and showing signs of increased player engagement. Offscreen indicators are getting clearer. The mid-run camera behaviours that surprised new players are being smoothed. The playtest cohort keeps finding a handful of things to tweak per week and have been late to their real jobs on several occasions. The focus this month will be boss attack telegraphing and general fine tuning.
Where next
September is Stage 3, for real. Siobhan will also be bringing our cast of pilots to life while we put the finishing touches on Stage 2. We're also working on a soon-to-be-released Stage 1-only demo that is already getting rave reviews from the playtest team.