This would indeed be the best possibility for the growth of Unturned II. Kids are out from school and people have more than usual time they usually have. People will be getting bored of the game they expected to grind all summer by July and browse through the Steam store looking for a game to play.
A problem with II was that its player retention has always been poor. Too many people that get the game didn’t stay. Likely because of how people unexpectedly got unsatisfactory FPS due to poor optimization, or simply just not liking something about the game that can’t be immediately detected.
That being said, Nelson has said that he wants the game to be fully solid in terms of content and wants to get a lot of things into the game before the release.
Seeing as what we currently have seen in the devlogs and on the wiki, would a summer release be okay?
Yes, it would be likely to get a Summer 2019 release.
No, that’s just plain stupid and let Nelson go at his own pace.
While I believe releasing Unturned II at a slow pace will greatly help in making sure it’s great on launch, releasing an open beta or doing a new wave soonish could help the diminishing player count. A while back it spiked a bit (apparently some large youtuber did a video on Unturned), but now the player count is going down gradually. I believe that in a few months Nelson should most likely have the resources and content for a public beta ready.
As seen in the recent devlog, the game has support for basic modding that could help make up for the lack of content a semi-premature beta release. Doing it in ‘summer’ when school is out would work great for a beta release. A full release could definitely be much later/next year when the game may be ready for that, but as I’ve said, a beta release will help spawn interest for the game from players of U3 and those who come across it. And if their experience at first is sour, at least knowing it existed back then may make them revisit it when it could be released.
In the meantime, I suspect Nelson is working on a combat beta for us with the key (and hopefully a mac version), which would give youtubers content and drive interest.
At the end of all of this, it’s ultimately Nelson’s decision to do what he wants with the game. It’s all about the right time and the right content. I’d hate for him to name a time like he has done in the before and then not be able to live up to that promise due to problems. The thing I love is that the more we wait, the better the game gets.