Card Hunter to be officially released Sept. 12

Blue Manchu's online collectible card game RPG hybrid, Card Hunter, will leave its extended beta and officially release on Sept. 12, the developer announced today. The current beta build of the game, the developer says, is the game's final build and after a day of downtime on Sept. 11, the game will go live.

While Card Hunter is free-to-play, allowing players to purchase treasure chests to unlock loot and costumes, Blue Manchu is offering an introductory Basic Edition of the game for $25. Included in the launch package are 11 Treasure Hunt adventures (quests that drop epic quality items if you complete them), a month of Club membership (which boosts loot drops), nine extra figures and 100 pizza slices, Card Hunter's in-game currency.

Patient players can still unlock loot simply by playing the game, however. Blue Manchu has said it's "striving hard to make sure the game isn’t 'pay to win.'"

The release of Card Hunter doesn't mean the end of the game's development, its creators say.

"We very much intend to keep working on the game and will update you with our plans as we go," the developer says in a new blog post. "We have big ideas for improving Card Hunter. In the future will be more cards, more items, more adventures and many more things beyond!"

For more on Card Hunter and Blue Manchu, check out our preview of the game from last year's PAX Prime and our feature on the studio of veteran game developers.