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Tomas Franzese is the Weekend News Editor at Polygon, following and reporting on the latest goings-on in the gaming and entertainment spaces. During the week, you can find him working on Remastered, his newsletter about video game history and retro gaming, or contributing to GameSpot and other publications. Previously, Tomas was the Gaming Segment Lead at XDA and a Staff Writer at Digital Trends.
Jeff Kaplan's first game at Kintsugiyama, The Legend of California, has shifted its early access launch from 2026 to 2027
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Former Overwatch developers Jeff Kaplan and Tim Ford are currently working on a survival game called The Legend of California at their new studio Kintsugiyama. While the game was previously slated for a Steam Early Access release in 2026, a new r/pcgaming Reddit AMA affirmed it has been pushed back to 2027.
Why was The Legend of California delayed?
The Legend of California is an ambitious survival game inspired by titles like Rust, where players build up a ranch, mine for resources, and trailblaze through a fictional rendition of California during its Gold Rush era. It's multiplayer-driven with some MMO-inspired elements, and Kintsugiyama still needs more time to refine server performance to account for that. While the official account for The Legend of California mentioned the delay to 2027 in a reply on X months ago, that went under the radar and Kintsugiyama did not more broadly discuss the new release window until this Reddit AMA.
Jeff Kaplan revealed in one answer that The Legend of California was supposed to already be in early access by now, but that Alpha 3 for the game "had performance issues and didn't feel up to our standards for release." In another reply, Kaplan elaborated that "we have server performance metrics were trying to hit before release," but that the development team does "feel good on the feature/content side of things."
Once Kintsugiyama can overcome those performance-related technical issues, it seems like we can expect an early access release. Elsewhere in the Q&A, Kaplan and Ford also teased some of the features they are still working on for the game. Eventually, they would like The Legend of California to support features like private servers, modding, a full collapse and support system for mines, and pets.
The Legend of California will be released into early access on Steam and the Epic Games Store in 2027. Ford confirmed the studio is in discussions with Nvidia about a GeForce Now release for the game, which won't come to consoles during the early access period. Another alpha will take place on Steam between Nov. 12 and Nov. 18.