Developer Black Tabby Games has announced that Scarlet Hollow will receive a major update on July 14, 2025. Titled The Roads Untraveled, it will serve as a soft relaunch for the game, significantly enhancing the first two episodes.
Back with a Vengeance
Originally released in 2021, Scarlet Hollow was Black Tabby Games' debut title, but its development is still ongoing as a Steam Early Access project. Ever since then, the team has releasedSlay the Princess, which was a major success for narrative adventures, winning multiple awards and reaching a high score onMetacritic. The major hit even received its own overhaul with The Pristine Cut in October 2024 and has sold over half a million copies worldwide so far.
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Now, with the skills they have gained over those few years, Black Tabby returns to Scarlet Hollow with a soft relaunch meant to polish the project. Currently in Early Access, Scarlet Hollow already has four of the seven planned chapters available on Steam. The full release is expected to come by the end of 2026 if everything goes right.
While the update adjusts elements of the whole package, the main goal is to enhance the first two chapters of the story. The developers' aim is to improve player agency, adding new paths that were not available initially, and increasing the story content by over 70,000 words. It’ll now be possible to do things very differently and this will also impact the story in the later chapters.
The developers tease two circumstances in their Steam newsupdate. The first one is not venturing into the woods, which should significantly change how the story plays out in episode 1. It’ll also now be possible to completely circumvent any dangers at the start of the second episode, but it’ll be interesting to see how that will affect the story from then on.
As part of the announcement, the developer has shared a montage with four screenshots of relevant scenes. Some of those are brand new, but there are also redraws of old events that players might recognize:
Dialogue boxes and other user interface elements have also been enhanced. As a result, the textboxes are now wider and feature a more seamless integration with the illustrations rather than clashing with them. Relevant buttons can now be seen on the box itself, making it harder for players to miss them. The trait system also got reworked to include a background image while keeping contrast high.
The developers have shared a look at comparisons between two scenes in new screenshots. On the first one, we get to see a conversation and how the textboxes changed. On the other, the trait system is highlighted. The new, enhanced versions are on top, while the older one can be seen on the bottom.
The developers' aim is to improve player agency, adding new paths that were not available initially, and increasing the story content by over 70,000 words.
In the March 3 update, Black Tabby Games also intend to add an ending to Episode 4 that was originally planned but had to be cut during development. The developer points out that it may not be ready so soon, however, which would leave it to one of the next updates. After this overhaul, the developer still plans to release the next chapter of the story before the end of 2025.
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