Deep Worlds is choosing Beautiful Light's exact release date, and GTA 6 is part of the decision
Back from gamescom, Deep Worlds' CEO calls the Early Access day a marketing decision, and names GTA 6 as one of the factors in it.
Beautiful Light is still listed for December 2026, with no day attached. That is about to change. In a post on the studio's official Discord on 8 September 2026, Deep Worlds' CEO Eric "Aherys" Rajot said the team is now deciding on the precise release date, and will announce it as soon as the decision is made.
GTA 6 is on the table
The most striking part of the update is how candid it is about why the choice is hard. Aherys named GTA 6 as a factor, and described the decision as more of a marketing call than a game development one.
Our reading: a small independent studio does not want its Early Access launch to land in the same weeks as the biggest release of the year, when attention, streams and press coverage all go one way. Deep Worlds did not say which way the decision is leaning, and the store pages have not moved. Until they do, December 2026 is still the official window. The release date page tracks it.
What the team says it is working on
The same post was a general update after gamescom, where Aherys said a lot of good business happened. He also mentioned the studio's new office, and listed the current development priorities:
- A new sound system
- The skill tree
- AI
- A game tutorial
- The second map
His summary: everything is currently on track. He shared a very early screenshot of the skill tree alongside the post, warned that the team is still exploring a lot of ideas and that it will not be the final version, and said the studio would probably share more on these topics soon.
The screenshot is a radial tree drawn over a top-down map. Among the node names you can read: War Lord, Commando, Quick Aim and Hold Breath; Ordnance, Throw Distance and Cook Grenades; Support, Medical, Field Medic and Healer; Technician, Laptop, PDA and Lockpick; Anomaly Hunter, Endurance, Stamina and Survival. Our reading, not the studio's: the branches look like playstyles, from gunfights and grenades to healing teammates, handling objectives and hunting anomalies. How points are earned, and which of these names survive, is not known.
A week later: the second map
On 15 September, Deep Worlds followed through. The studio posted a first set of screenshots of its second map's level art in the same Discord channel, introducing it as something it had kept secret for a while. It is the first set of images Deep Worlds has explicitly presented as the second map's level art.
The four screenshots are mostly interiors: a corridor sealed with plastic sheeting and lined with body bags, a ruined tiled washroom, an office room, and the facade of a building wrapped in tarps. Snow lies outside every window. Deep Worlds did not name the map or say where it is set.
The most recent development video, published on 25 August 2026, also has a chapter on level art, without saying which map it shows:
Watch on YouTube from 19:10Players FLY now?! BEAUTIFUL LIGHT - New Anomalies, new guns, new equipment and more DEV UPDATE #9What is still unknown
- The exact release day, and whether it stays in December 2026
- The price: the only official figure dates back to April 2023
- The name of the second map, and where it is set
- How the skill tree works, beyond the early screenshot
For the monsters side of the launch, see the anomalies guide, and check your PC against the system requirements before the date lands.
Sources
- Deep Worlds' official Discord (discord.gg/project-bl), #leaks-wip: post by Aherys, CEO, 8 September 2026, and post by Matavatar, Head Staff, 15 September 2026
- Beautiful Light on Steam, checked 15 September 2026
- Development update videos presented by Psychoghost for Deep Worlds, on YouTube
BL Guide, unofficial community coverage of Beautiful Light: how we check what we publish.