A Steam community announcement has word that Pixel Piracy will be officially released on Steam on Thursday at 1:00 pm EDT, less than one year after development began on the open world pirate game (thanks Batman). They say Valve has informed them that that the game is one of the first and quickest to actually leave the early access stage, after a little over six months with that status. Alexander Poysky explains that two hundred thousand players are participating in the early access, and express gratitude in explaining the game's success has meant to the two-person development team, and hints at plans for the future:

It's so rewarding to see that our little motto of "do things in a correct fashion without ever abusing or taking advantage of anyone." has worked so well, and we hope to prove that the Early Access system works.

Vitali and I both do this for a living now. We were able to leave our respective jobs, to help our families, to do what we love most in life, all thanks to you.

You are the ones who support our endeavours, you are the ones who help us march along and get the job done. You put your money where your faith in us was, and we are making due on that faith by finishing the game.

I want to take this opportunity to explain that launch and 1.0 DOES NOT mean we will stop updating the title! Mikko will come to work the day directly after, just as any other day, and keep on plugging away. I will continue to think up new things to add to the game and business will go on as usual. Expect to see many new and exciting things soon in the world of Pixel Piracy!

It's been an amazing, thrilling, fun, insane, and spectacularly rewarding ride, and I want to let you all know that the Pixel universe isn't just going to stop at Pixel Piracy... what the future brings... only we know ;).

Expect something big soon!