The Legend of California

The Legend of California is a first-person survival shooter set on a fictional island during the California Gold Rush. Alone or with friends, players explore different landscapes, build a ranch and fight over resources.

The independent studio Kintsugiyama combines gunfights with hunting, mining, crafting and building up your own settlement. The open multiplayer world leaves room for your own goals and different ways of playing.

The Legend of California is expected to release in Early Access on PC in 2027. Kintsugiyama postponed the launch, originally planned for 2026, after performance problems during the first public alpha tests.

The Legend of California is announced for Windows PC and can be wishlisted on Steam. Early Access is not planned for consoles.

Jeff Kaplan and Tim Ford do not rule out later console versions, but have not announced a release for them. You can sign up for the PC test version via Steam.

The open island combines forests, mountains, dry plateaus and coastal landscapes. Players hunt wildlife, explore dangerous outposts and fight with firearms from a first-person perspective. Combat is designed to reward precise aiming and positioning above all.

Enemy camps and fortresses create targets for joint missions. You can also gather resources, craft tools and cook meals. Players who don't want to fight can spend a long time expanding their property.

The Legend of California requires Windows 10 or 11 in the 64-bit version, DirectX 12, a broadband connection, and 50 GB of free storage on an SSD.

The minimum hardware listed for Kintsugiyama is an Intel Core i7-10700K or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, 16 GB RAM, and a GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER with 8 GB or Radeon RX 6600 with 8 GB. Recommended are a Core i7-12700K or Ryzen 7 5700X, 32 GB RAM, and a GeForce RTX 3080 with 10 GB or Radeon RX 6800 with 16 GB.

Players build their own ranch and expand it with workshops, stables and other buildings. They use collected raw materials to craft equipment, weapons and tools. Mining is also one of the activities planned on an ongoing basis.

Shelters and production buildings are not just decoration: they form the basis for processing resources and equipping longer expeditions.

The Legend of California is played on online multiplayer servers. A group, called a Company in the game, can have up to four people and share buildings, supplies and progress. Exploring and fighting is also possible alone.

The game world is mainly built around fights against computer-controlled enemies. PvP is meant to remain optional. Kintsugiyama also plans its own PvP servers and support for community servers. The concept does not include a fully offline single-player mode.

The multiplayer world runs as a continuous server with regular restarts. Kintsugiyama plans monthly resets so that new and experienced players can start together in a fresh game phase.

The studio wants to prevent long-established possessions and power structures from permanently deciding how new players get started. The specific implementation may change during Early Access.

The Legend of California is being made by the independent studio Kintsugiyama. Game director Jeff Kaplan previously led Overwatch at Blizzard. Together with technical director Tim Ford, he is developing the survival shooter as the new studio's first game.

The team works with the Unreal Engine and uses Box3D for physics effects such as falling trees and movable objects.