Temtem developer Crema, a week after sparking a sometimes acrimonious debate over whether its game is really an MMO, announced that after the upcoming 1.7 update, no new islands, tems, or paths will be released for the game and all in-game micro transactions will be removed.

Temtem was created through a 2018 Kickstarter campaign that raised approximately $574,000, far exceeding its initial goal of $70,000; Crema described the game in its campaign as a "massively multiplayer creature collecting adventure," but a FAQ clarified that its vision for the game was "much smaller" than a traditional MMO. Nevertheless, the use of this terminology raised the hopes of some players for the long-term future.

This was the crux of the conversation that began in February when Crema announced a new game called "Temtem": some members of the community took it as a sign that the original Temtem was being abandoned.

Enrique Paños Montoya, CEO of Crema, did not smooth the waters when he broke into the fray on Discord. If Temtem fans want the series to continue, he said, "What you really want is for us to stop improving Temtem 1 and start working on something new. Right now we are improving Temtem 1 for you.

A studio representative later told GamesRadar that Temtem is not going away and will continue to receive further updates alongside Temtem's development: in a lengthy statement Swarm Crema posted on Steam today, The company detailed its plans for the future of Temtem: The 1.7 patch, scheduled for early June, will include a new season, a new tamer pass, and the usual bug fixes, balance changes, and quality-of-life improvements. It will also be the last update to include the new season and tamer pass.

Further down the road, the 1.8 patch will be "the last feature-packed patch of normal size," although it will not be the last: Crema has stated that they will "continue polishing, bug fixing, and balancing as long as Temtem needs it."

Most of today's announcement provides a detailed rationale for Crema's decision to end new content development, ranging from technical debt - more content means more problems - to the fact that the work involved in creating new islands and tems is simply not paying off concentrating on the fact that: "Most players complete a new island in about six hours, but our team took nine months to produce it.

Crema also stated that "we are not currently thinking about an offline mode," which had been widely requested by players; on Twitter, Crema also clarified this point, saying that if the server had to be taken offline, "it would mean an offline mode but we will always find a way to make the game available to everyone."

Reactions to this announcement have been mixed. Some players are happy to see the end of monetization and the recognition of Crema's mistakes, while others remain adamantly angry and continue to insist that Temtem continue development The mini-review bombing campaign on Steam continues: only 130 new user reviews have been posted in the past 30 days, for a total of 130, a small fraction of the more than 30,000 total reviews, but "mostly negative" due to frustration over the decision to end updates of new content.

Crema also reaffirmed that the promised Arcade Bar is coming and will be rolled out in the 1.7 update. Along with three "Temtem-based arcade mini-games," the Arcade Bar will also include a "super simplified" version of Temtem included: although this part may be added in a future patch.