PVKK, or Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant if you’re particular, is a game we’ve been eagerly awaiting: It was named one of our most anticipated games during last year’s PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted rundown, largely by virtue of how badly we want to fiddle with the many deliciously tactile switches, levers, knobs, cranks, and buttons it offers for the operation of its titular planetary defense cannon.
Unfortunately, we’ve now got a longer wait before we can play the Papers Please-like supercannoneer sim for ourselves. In a Steam news post, game director René Habermann announced that PVKK has been delayed until 2027 “to make sure PVKK is in the best shape possible at launch.”
“I know this sucks and I understand your disappointment. As we’ve been working behind the scenes, it’s become clear that we can push things way further than we originally thought, and with a bit more time, make something really special,” Habermann said. “For every problem we’ve encountered and solved (and there have been many!), we’ve had 10 new ideas for ways to improve things for our commanders. We’re super happy with the planned content in the game now, and are working hard to bring everything to life.”
Executing on all those ideas, it seems, has meant bringing on a few additional hands. According to Habermann, Bippinbits—the studio behind PVKK—has expanded alongside the game’s scope. In 2025, its staff more than doubled in size from four full-time developers to 11.
“As it stands, releasing on our original timeline would mean compromising on making PVKK the best game it can be, and that is not something we want,” Habermann said. “This means that PVKK will now be launching in 2027.”
In a 2024 interview with PC Gamer, Habermann said PVKK is more than just listening to the satisfying clunks and clicks of the apocalyptic artillery’s control surfaces. It’ll also give players plenty of time between executing the firing orders they receive from their superiors to sip their daily tea rations, peruse teleradio propaganda, and consider more generally the ethical implications of shooting a giant cannon for what its store listing openly calls “an autocratic regime.”
“What I do enjoy a lot is to put the player in certain situations, and let them have their own thoughts with it,” Habermann said. “That’s something funny that also happened already with Dome Keeper: Some people picked up that you land on this planet, you shoot all the native creatures, you exploit the planet, and then you then you go away again. Yeah, like, ‘Am I the bad guy?’ … That’s something I really enjoy.”
While a delay isn’t the kind of news we hope for, perhaps the extra pondering time isn’t a bad thing. After all, we wouldn’t want to rush to any conclusions about a moral dilemma as complex as “is it bad to shoot a big gun for bad people.” Best to approach these sorts of ethical quandaries with a level head.
While we won’t see it this year, you can still wishlist PVKK now on Steam.
