There's a nice chunk of info to get to, so in the interest of keepin' this bad boy as concise as possible, I'll skip the preamble.

First order of business, production for the VG EXILES fan club on Deviantart is well under construction. The group name and page was set up since last month's update, BUT, as of right now, it's just a placeholder so there's nothing to see yet...at all. That won't happen until launch day, which now has an official release date set forMonday, MAY 14. As stated before, this is gonna be the ONLY SOURCE for all VG Exiles news once it's up and running. What we CAN do, is open up membership NOW, so that when it DOES launch, you guys will be notified through DA. Membership is automatic. Just click the Join button on the top of the page.

===>http://pan-jump.deviantart.com/<===

For the YouTube channel, we want to make sure the videos we have for launch will be ready ON launch. So it'll most likely be 2 weeks after the group launches on DA that the YouTube channel will be live. An official release date for that is coming soon.

Now, onto the meat and potatoes of this blog-some quick clarifications, 'cause I know a bunch of people have been wondering.

R1 and I spent all winter getting production squared away for the rest of the year. This started with pre-production for Episode 4 and Episode 3.5 in December, the first of what would be referred to as "point 5's". These were set to be ALL-ART SCENE episodes, shorter in length to main episodes, and would center on further character development, as well as serve as a segue into the following main episode. As the story took shape, and became deeper than an off-the-cuff sprite fight series, the future of the series was well in view. What was problematic was that everything released prior was creating holes. For what we have coming, we need to clean up what came before.

NO-this does not mean a reboot. We're not starting from scratch because we don't NEED to...and also....that would take too goddamn long. However, we ARE retooling. We explained that we were gonna touch up the past episodes so they all had a unified, up-to-date look across the board. Still true. But we're giving this more attention than we were initially because-again-we need to make sure those episodes tie in smoothly to what we have mapped out for the duration of the series. Instead of us just starting with the next episode in the series-then having to explain away GAPING plot holes through extraneous bios and extras menus-it just makes more sense to show the building blocks of these elements from the start. From the VERY beginning, you'll be able to better understand the story as it develops through characterization and subtle foreshadowing to reveal a larger overarching plot. More importantly, certain elements that have only been touched upon through mass amounts of text in the extras will now have visual representation.

Simply put, it's a very, VERY necessary step, but it's also something that we're excited to bring, both in terms of retooled art scenes from the prior episodes and in terms of greater characterization. While sprite fight scenes will not be completely overhauled, you CAN expect to see some new elements in the choreography that wasn't there originally. It'll be like watching the special edition versions of the Lord of the Rings trilogies-minus the extra hour and half.

This is our direction for the rest of the year. All four episodes will premiere THIS YEAR in their new, retooled versions. They should be considered canon that overwrites anything that premiered before it.This goes for the numbering, as well. What you guys knew as Episode 0, will be released as EPISODE 1 in the coming months (it's already well into production). It WILL NOT premiere on launch of the DA group, but WILL premiere on the launch of the YouTube page-which again, should be about 2 weeks after the DA group is live. Also, as previously stated, these retools WILL NOT be put to Newgrounds on their release dates. The Deviantart group and the YouTube Channel will be the only place to see these retooled episodes when they finally premiere. The "point 5s" (two of them) will premiere after that 4th retooled episode-they WILL premiere on Newgrounds- and are planned for release next winter.

One last point of clarification--we have been working EXTENSIVELY all winter on this and other production aspects. No need for anyone to be concerned that nothing is happening behind the scenes. I can promise, you we have entered CRUNCH TIME for several weeks now.

And that should do it.

As always, stay frosty, folks. Expect another blog update in 3 weeks.
*sidenote* GAME OF THRONES IN 2 WEEKS $@%@!!!%$@#%#$!%$#$%#$^%$#