Current Status: Released!
Available Now!
Journey Express left Early Access on June 6th, 2026! 🎉
✨ Check it out on Steam!Early Access launched on January 2nd, 2026!
The Open Playtest concluded in September of 2025!
A big thank you to all who have supported Journey Express along the way! Please let me know if you run into any issues or have any suggestions! I’m always happy to take a look at possible bugs or make things play better.
— C
Progress In Early Access
Since launch into Steam Early Access on January 2nd, 2026, there have been many additions, changes, and bug fixes to the game!
- Trading posts have been added to certain locations on the map!
- New interactive features in 3D exploration like bird hunting, digging for resources, and berry bushes!
- Improvements in quality of life and new features for the game UI in the main menu, while traveling, and while exploring!
- Available map locations increased from 9 to 15, with some of them having the new trading posts feature!
- New map discoveries added to increase the number to find from 6 up to 13!
- The Rumor Mill was added to the Explorer’s Guild for purchasing hint information for finding Discoveries!
- New and improved sound effects in menus, traveling, and exploring!
- The number of randomized events that can be encountered while traveling has gone from 18 to 27!
- Bonuses and penalties given out upon completing a journey!
- Many, many bug fixes and mechanics improvements across the entire game!
- The options menu has been improved with new graphics and game difficulty options!
- Vastly improved performance in the 3D sections of the game — upwards of 200%+ more FPS!
- A new help menu was added to get new players acquainted with how the game works!
Possible Future Ideas
Features, Enhancements, & Changes
Feature: Mutators and challenges for individual contracts
Change: Revisit effects of low food & starvation
— Consider updating high-level status UI to show number of people that are hungry, etc.
Feature: Add basic settings for audio
Feature: Make strange cave in the desert actually explorable
Feature: Configurable key bindings
Feature: Finish implementation of food consumption strategy selection: Perishable first, None
Testing: Verify behavior of taking interactive world object (full pack, etc.)
Feature: Add some kind of breadcrumb trail on map
Change: Add zoom in/out feature to map
Enhancement: Look into underwater shader. E.g. Staggart Creations
Bug Tracking
Bug: Monitor for any cases where buttons are pressed/activated via key presses or otherwise when they shouldn’t be accessible
Bug Report: Fishing minigame feedback:
“I didn’t get the Fishing minigame - I tried it once and the ball jumped away and never came back”. Add safety catch — if the ball gets outside the play area or falls too far, reset the game
Bug Report: Registration feedback: “Can’t change my family name on the registration screen.” — Maybe specific to Steam Deck and/or touch input?
Bug: Spawn point selection not working in exploration scenes
Bug: Storm and standard transition lighting modes during travel should be smoothed out
Bug: Depending on how items are added to the backpack, they may or may not respect the max tile stack property of the item
Bug: UI canvas scaling doesn’t appear to work at 16:10 as expected
Bug Report: River crossing logic selected a point too far to the west when approaching from the east
Bug Report: Verify removal of selected/completed/failed contract from the available pool in the game state
Error Report: RemoveItemFromInventory exception during transition to exploration — unsure why this occurred