Fatal Claw Release Date — 1.0 Is Out, Full Timeline

The Fatal Claw release date question has a clean answer: version 1.0 launched on August 26, 2026 at 07:00 UTC on Steam for Windows, ending an Early Access period that began on November 18, 2025. The game is out, it is the full release, and anything describing Fatal Claw as upcoming or Early Access is out of date. This page holds the complete version timeline with sources and dates, so you can also tell exactly which build any guide or video is talking about.

Quick answer

Fatal Claw 1.0 went live on Steam on August 26, 2026 — 4:00 PM in Korea and Japan, 9:00 AM in Central Europe, 3:00 AM Eastern, midnight Pacific — published by Com2us Holdings after two major Early Access expansions. It costs $24.99 with a 20% introductory discount to $19.99 for the launch window, and the launch build has already been patched (1.0.8 by August 29). If you are reading a guide, check its date against the timeline below; anything written before August 26, 2026 describes an older build.

The full timeline, demo to 1.0

• August 20, 2025 — the Kickstarter FAQ's platform answer (last updated this day) commits to PC via Steam first, with a Nintendo Switch version in development.
• September 23, 2025 — a free Steam demo goes live alongside the Kickstarter campaign; the FAQ dated the window as September 23 to October 24, 2025.
• October 2025 — an official speedrun challenge event runs in the demo (October 13 to 24), with YouTube submissions and lottery rewards.
• November 18, 2025 — Early Access begins on Steam, priced well below what follows and covering the first slice of the world.
• During Early Access — two major expansion updates add regions, movement abilities, and quality-of-life features, growing the game from its roughly six-hour first slice.
• June 16, 2026 — a developer reply on the Steam hub pins the full version to a Q3 2026 target with a date announcement expected in early July.
• August 13–19, 2026 — the 1.0 Pre-Release branch is announced and opens for existing owners one week before launch (beta code FATALCLAW20260826), with Early Access saves carrying forward.
• August 18–24, 2026 — the 1.0 Update Preview lands, pre-release hotfixes follow on August 20 and 24, and the Official 1.0 Launch Trailer publishes on August 22.
• August 26, 2026 — version 1.0 releases at 07:00 UTC, with the introductory discount and regional price adjustments across MENA, SASIA, LATAM, and CIS.
• August 29, 2026 — the 1.0.8 hotfix is live: pogo descent tuning, a Quit Game option, improved healing guidance, entrance visibility fixes, and multiple audio fixes.

The compressed August cadence — preview, pre-release, two hotfixes, trailer, launch, day-three patch — is worth internalizing, because it set the tone for how the developer ships changes: fast, in public, on a live branch that owners could test a week early.

Early Access, as history

Before August 26, 2026, Fatal Claw was an Early Access title, and that era is now version history rather than a buying decision. EA opened on November 18, 2025 — delivering on the FAQ's aim to launch within 2025 — and the initial slice ran roughly six hours, according to the publisher's own launch coverage. The two expansions that followed added the quarry, canyon, and tundra regions, claw-based movement, and a stack of quality-of-life improvements that community feedback had asked for during the demo window.

The practical legacy for new players is save compatibility: Early Access saves carried into the pre-release branch and onward into 1.0, so nobody who supported the game early was forced to restart. Old guides, videos, and maps from that era, though, describe a smaller world — always check a source's date against this timeline.

Price, discount, and what launch included

The 1.0 price is $24.99, with a 20% introductory discount to $19.99 running about two weeks from launch — the store page dated the offer's end as September 9, 2026. Launch also brought regional price adjustments in MENA, SASIA, LATAM, and CIS regions, and the store has carried bundle offers pairing Fatal Claw with other titles in the genre at a bundle discount.

Launch-window extras framed the community era: a supporters event (August 19 to September 2, 2026) put active players' names into an in-game supporters list with a verification window afterward, and the developer has said an additional reward for Kickstarter backers and Early Access players is being prepared. None of these affect the release date itself, but they mark the launch window if you are trying to date screenshots or footage.

What changed between Early Access and 1.0

The release date matters because the two builds on either side of it are different sizes. Early Access opened in November 2025 with roughly six hours of content, per the publisher's own launch coverage, and grew across two major expansion updates that added the quarry, canyon, and tundra regions, claw-based movement, and a round of quality-of-life features the community had requested since the demo. Version 1.0 is the publisher's "roughly 30 hours" build — the playtime page carries those numbers in detail — adding the laboratory expansions, the castle interiors, and the Aphotic Marsh on top of everything EA players had seen.

For Early Access players, launch was deliberately low-friction: saves carried forward, a pre-release branch opened a week early for owners to test, and an additional backer reward was announced as in preparation. If you lapsed during Early Access, the honest summary is that the map you remember is now a neighborhood of the final world — and old guides, maps, and videos from that era describe superseded facts. The walkthrough hub and guide hub are written against 1.0 and re-checked per patch for exactly that reason.

Version questions this page answers

Which build am I playing? The launch build and the 1.0.8 hotfix are both "1.0" in store terms; the hotfix is the one with pogo tuning and the Quit Game option. Is the game still being updated? The cadence from August 2026 says yes — treat the official Steam news hub as the source of truth for anything newer than this page's date. Was there a demo? Yes, and it has its own history page: the Fatal Claw demo guide covers the trial window and what it contained.

For what shipped in each version, the guide hub and walkthrough hub are written against 1.0 and re-checked per patch; for whether your machine and platform are covered, see the platform status page and the Switch status page.

FAQ

Is Fatal Claw 1.0 out? Yes. Version 1.0 released on Steam for Windows on August 26, 2026 at 07:00 UTC. The store page lists it as released, the Early Access label is gone, and the 1.0.8 hotfix followed within three days.

When did Fatal Claw Early Access start? Early Access began November 18, 2025, following a free demo that ran September 23 to October 24, 2025. Two major expansion updates grew the game during Early Access before 1.0 replaced it.

How much does Fatal Claw cost? The list price is $24.99, with a 20% launch discount to $19.99 that the store dated through September 9, 2026. Regional prices were adjusted at launch in MENA, SASIA, LATAM, and CIS.