14 DAY TRIAL // Stardock and Ironclad Games have announced their intention not to release the planned Entrenchment mini expansion for their real time strategy title Sins of a Solar Empire on November 18, the date initially revealed. The developer and publisher have not indicated a new release date, but given the fact that Demigod, another game from Stardock, is scheduled to be launched in February 2008, it makes sense to believe that January will be the month when Entrenchment is made available.
To placate those fans who could be outraged by the delay, which is unusual for a Stardock published game, the company has announced that it plans to launch a beta stage, which would be accessible for those who had pre-ordered the game. No set date has been announced for the beginning of the beta, but a series of posts on the Sins of a Solar Empire forums detail the fact that the 1.1 patch for the game will arrive first and only after that the beta period will begin.
Brad Wardell has recently detailed Stardock's position of avoiding the holiday rush, when big publishers tend to release their AAA titles, in order to launch games in the quieter period which follows, allowing for better exposure for their titles.
Entrenchment is set to be the first of three mini expansions for Sins of a Solar Empire. They will retail digitally for a low price and will each enhance one aspect of the game. The first one will make defending planets and solar systems easier by adding starbases, which will have massive firepower, minefields and other race specific defensive structures. The idea is to create more pitched battles in the game by not allowing players to simply bypass fleets in order to go straight to attacking planets and other structures in the solar system.