Despite The Rocky Past, DreamWorld Heads To Alpha 2 In Early 2024, Goes F2P, And Offers Refunds

It's easy to think that DreamWorld just went away after the many cries of "scam", accusations, false claims, and more following the game's disaster (but funded) KickStarter, initial horrid testing, and honestly, just self-inflicted wound after self-inflicted wound. This included claims of having invented a server tech that MMO companies haven't that allows massively multiplayer games with tons of players to run on a single server...but failing to show off that tech. And literally, that was just the beginning...

Since then, it's been a while since we've covered DreamWorld here on the site. That's not to say the team hasn't been working and communicating, it's just that the communication is largely in weekly development updates on the game's website. Those updates are often small and really only of import to those currently taking part in DreamWorld's Alpha 1, so we wouldn't cover them here.

And, if I'm being honest, there are aspects of the project that made me personally think it would never see the light of day as a full release of the "last game you'll ever play."

However, Alpha 2 is apparently incoming and the DreamWorld team has a few announcements to go with it. In a video released today, CEO Garrison Bellack and CCO Zachary Kaplan revealed that DreamWorld's Alpha 2 is coming in early 2024 and that the game will be dropping the price tag and going free-to-play.

If you previously bought the game, you'll be able to email the team for a refund (starting in 2024 and being offered up until Alpha 2 launch, details in the video below), but if you'd rather not get a refund, there will be a bevy of the typical "Founder's Packs" type rewards for you to claim soon. On the topic of "Founder's Packs", DreamWorld will be starting to offer those soon, too.

Alpha 2 will be letting in a limited number of players each week in early 2024, but the numbers will be restricted to those that sign up on the game's official site. Should you want info on upcoming Founder's Packs, you'll want to sign up for the game's mailing list while you're there.

As far as plans go, Alpha 2 will include a graphics upgrade, new progression system, new gathering and crafting options, farming, new base building options, and new world bosses. Alpha 2 is also planned to be an "infinite world" as Kaplan claims in the video, with biomes generating as far as players can explore.

Personally, I think the F2P decision is the right one as DreamWorld is one of the titles I would HIGHLY recommend seeing what you're getting into before you open up that wallet. There's obviously been a lot of red flags on this project and there's a lot of promises on the table with this one. While the team has grown to 15 this past year, it's a lot of big talk that initially wasn't backed up or executed the way it should have been.

In short, go watch videos from your favorite content creators playing in Alpha 2 when it kicks off next year THEN decide if it's worth your time or money.