Envision Entertainment designed Pioneers of Pagonia's campaign to better "integrated into the game"

Later this year, in December, Envision Entertainment will make the big leap and take its strategy title Pioneers of Pagonia out of Early Access. After years of operating as an 'unfinished' game, the project is ready for its 1.0 build, and this will be marked by the inclusion of a big campaign mode that also serves as a tutorial to help newer players adapt to and learn about the game and its various systems.

As part of Gamescom, we had the opportunity to sit down with creative director Volker Wertich, where we asked about the campaign mode and what it was like building a story mode after the rest of the game was mostly finished.

"I mean, what is really tricky about campaigns in strategy games, very often there's a lot of time pressure, and the campaign is created in parallel to the game. And often you feel that, yeah. So we had the opportunity now, also with Early Access, to take our time to polish the game. To make the economy more complete, more, let's say, finished in a way that it feels really like it's the final product. And then we worked on the campaign. So I think that's something people will feel. That it doesn't look like the campaign is just something additional which has been added somehow, but it's really integrated into the game, explains a lot of the lore of the game, and will also have some very nice surprises and twists for the players."

Speaking about using the campaign as a bit of a glorified tutorial, Wertich added the following.

"The most important thing is here that, of course, the game has a lot of depth and complexity. But because of the what you see is what you get system, it's very easy to understand if you just observe it. And we are unfolding the new systems and features step-by-step in the campaign. So in the beginning, for example, the tutorial starts that you go to an island and you have a shipwreck, basically, and it's completely broken and you need to repair your ship. And on this first map, you don't have to, let's say, train magical units or do subsurface mining. So it starts much easier and step-by-step you learn the new systems and the new mechanics. And I can assure you it's really a great pleasure in that way because... we have more than 100 different commodities, more than 70 different buildings, but you really learn this step by step and it gets a lot of fun."

You can see the full interview with Wertich below, and as for when Pioneers of Pagonia will leave Early Access, this is planned for December 11, 2025.