Recently announced is that the newly formed HullBreach Studios is developing the upcoming game HullBreach: Uncloaked. Described simply as a "space shooter" with varied influences including EVE Online, the game is planned to be exclusively released to the Wii U eShop. It is of course based on the existing browser game HullBreach Online, but firmly a standalone game and not an auxillary or expansion. At this point, there is no public timetable or pricing figure yet.
My greatest concern is whether HB: Uncloaked will supplant and/or stunt the progress of HB Online.
The problem with HB Online is that browser technology has advanced considerably in the past 7 years, so technologies used have been deprecated, and new technologies have arisen. This holds true for both client side and server side. I've made some tweaks to the game's engine a few times over the years and have gotten most of the features working in both modern Web browsers and the Wii's Internet Channel, but it is difficult to keep it working with both at once. Plus, HB Online was always a one-man show, so finding time to make updates and add new missions and content has always been difficult. I'd gladly pass the helm to someone else to take over, but I have very little time to update both the Wii and the Nintendo DSi versions.
HB: Uncloaked, on the other hand, is being made with a core team of 3 and uses modern development tools on a modern platform, so much more is possible with it.
There's also the obvious point that we hope to be compensated for the investment of our inevitable thousands of hours to development time for HB: Uncloaked in the form of the Wii U eShop. HB Online took hundreds of hours to develop, and the website never saw the influx of traffic to warrant high priority on that aspect of the SDK Community when other areas were more popular among members. For example, soon after the initial release of HB: Online, I once saw 18 players in the same sector, all chatting with each other. Compare that to the chatrooms, which at their peak would frequently have events with 80 members.
I don't really want to dwell on or second-guess HullBreach Online here. HullBreach: Uncloaked has already been determined to be the next step. I'm excited for it too. Seeing a developer make the transition from browser apps to true software is awesome, even surreal in this case. Business is business, and hopefully the Wii U platform will serve as a solid base for that.
I doubt Hull would go through the effort to port such an inactive game to Switch
Last I checked (several months ago) the main reason Hull couldn't develop for Switch was the fact that he's having a hard time getting registered for SDK and such.
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