Steampunk whale-riding RPG WindForge launches March 11

Following approval through Steam Greenlight earlier this month, steampunk role-playing game WindForge will launch on Steam March 11, developer Snowed In Studios' announced today.

A DRM-free pre-release version of the game is available through Snowed In's website. Buyers who purchase this option will receive the full game on March 11.

WindForge is an action game melding role-playing and 2D shooter elements set in a steampunk world. Players will build and run their own fleet of airships and take to the skies in them — as well as on flying whales — to explore. The title was successfully funded via Kickstarter in December, pulling in just over its $50,000 goal. The studio explained the decision to run the campaign was a difficult one as it meant postponing the game past fall 2013, but in the end it was the right one.

"We had a difficult choice to make, to keep working on the game with the help of the WindForge community or to shorten production and launch the game in the fall," Snowed in president Jean-Sylvain Sormany said in a press statement. "Running the campaign takes time and resources and we were not sure what was the right thing to do, given the statistics on how many Kickstarters fail. We literally did not know if we made the right decision or not until the very last minute."

Check out our hands-on of WindForge from the 2013 Game Developers Conference here.