Rakun InteractiveIndependent game studio
In production · Early Access December 2026

Pop Star Life 2

Leave your mother's farmhouse with a borrowed guitar and $3,000. Ride the dolmuş into a hand-built harbour city, and turn a street corner into a stadium, one song, one crowd, one night at a time.

Early Access plan Production roadmap
Build 0.9.0 Platform PC · Steam Engine Godot 4 Languages EN · TR Early Access Dec 2026
The game

A career you actually perform, in a city that never stops moving.

Pop Star Life 2 rebuilds the text-based original as a living 3D city. Every show is played, every shop is walked into, and every citizen reacts to who you've become.

0mHand-built city, edge to edge
0Venues you can walk into
0Ready-made characters
0Connected transit stops
0Properties to rent or own
0Furniture pieces

A career you actually perform

Busk on the street, play open mic or a booked set, sit at a piano or drum kit. A four-lane rhythm chart with holds and star phrases judges every show, and the crowd can dance, film you or walk out.

One dense, walkable city

A real street grid split by a river, with a harbour, marina, beach and airport. Built tile by tile, not scattered procedurally, with 150 simulated cars, buses, dolmuş minibuses and taxis you can hail.

Characters built for depth

Five body types, hundreds of swappable pieces with per-channel recolours, and a hybrid animation library so the same rig walks, fights, dances, eats and sits convincingly.

A life, not just a stage

Rent a room or buy a penthouse, furnish it piece by piece, bank, borrow, work shifts, gamble, and build a reputation (or a rap sheet) with a city full of people who remember you.

A story that starts small

No stage on day one. You begin in a nine-house farming village, inherit a guitar, ride a minibus into the city, and earn everything after that across a 47-quest, seven-chapter main line.

Fame that means something

Fame stages are gated by real fan counts and releases. Climbing them opens bigger rooms, from a café open mic to the concert hall, amphitheatre and stadium.

The rural village where the story starts: a farmhouse, garden gate and fields under a bright sky
Driving the coastal road into the city at sunrise, skyline and bay ahead
The first hour

From a village bedroom to the city lights.

Mother's house

You wake in the farmhouse. A played-out scene, not a menu: she hands you $3,000 while you lift the guitar off your bedroom wall.

The village

Step into a nine-house farming village with fields, orchards and a single road out, guided by signposts and a waypoint beacon.

The dolmuş

Flag the minibus at the village stop for a directed ride: pulling out of the layby, the village shrinking behind you.

Arrival

Step off in a city plaza with your guitar. A one-time City Rules card explains reputation, crime and the police.

First night

Find a hostel, learn the rhythm of the streets, and play your first set for strangers.

The world

1.5 km of harbour city, district by district.

A river corridor splits the grid north to south, crossed by ten bridges. The southern edge runs from the working harbour past the marina and a public beach to the airport. Tap a district to explore it.

Top-down map of the city: street grid, river, harbour, marina, beach and airport
In-engine · city map
The in-game city map with filterable pins for career, nightlife and daily venues
In-engine · district arrival
Driving through the Old Town district with the full HUD and minimap visible
Characters

272 citizens. One of them is you.

Every waiter, courier, doctor and rival busker in the city is assembled from the same modular pipeline as your own character, so the world and the player always look like they belong together.

  • Basketball player character presetBasketball player
  • Bicyclist character presetBicyclist
  • Builder character presetBuilder
  • Actor character presetActor
  • Businessman character presetBusinessman
  • Businesswoman character presetBusinesswoman
  • Captain character presetCaptain
  • Cashier character presetCashier
  • Cleaner character presetCleaner
  • Cook character presetCook
  • Courier character presetCourier
  • Card dealer character presetCard dealer
  • Doctor character presetDoctor
  • Architect character presetArchitect
  • EMT character presetEMT
  • Farmer character presetFarmer
  • Firefighter character presetFirefighter
  • Football player character presetFootball player
  • Gardener character presetGardener
  • Sanitation worker character presetSanitation worker
  • Hairdresser character presetHairdresser
  • Housemaid character presetHousemaid
  • Patient character presetPatient
  • Police officer character presetPolice officer
  • Prisoner character presetPrisoner
  • Repairman character presetRepairman
  • Lifeguard character presetLifeguard
  • Security character presetSecurity
  • Flight attendant character presetFlight attendant
  • Teacher character presetTeacher
  • Waiter character presetWaiter
  • Artist character presetArtist
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
  • Citizen character presetCitizen
Character creator
The character creator: identity tab with stage name, gender, age, nationality flags and starting city
Create your artist

Eleven tabs between you and your first gig.

IdentityArtistPresetsBodyFaceHairTopBottomShoesAccessoriesSkills
  • Stage name, age 17–20, and one of 25 nationalities, each with two starting cities
  • Seven artist archetypes: Pop Star, Songwriter, Producer, Live Performer, Instrumentalist, Influencer, Street Grinder
  • Four playable body types: Adult, Teen, Plus-size and Pumped
  • Recolour skin, hair, eyes, lips, brows and two garment channels independently
  • Spend 50 points across 8 personal traits and 8 career stats: vocals, instrument, stage charisma, songwriting, production, networking, marketing, resilience
  • Preview idle, dance, wave, talk and phone animations right in the creator

Wardrobe · up to 218 pieces per body group

Character production pipeline

From Blender to the busking square.

  1. Model & rig once per body type

    Adult, Teen, Plus-size, Pumped and Senior builds each share one skeleton, so any outfit fits any character of that build.

    Blender

  2. Break into swappable parts

    Hair, faces, tops, jackets, trousers, shoes and accessories become individual pieces tagged with recolour channels.

    Blender export pipeline

  3. Author the native motion set

    About 250 core clips per body type (walking, sitting, working, dancing, talking) are authored on the shared rig.

    Blender

  4. Retarget extra motion

    252 additional clips (combat, stunts, social gestures, instruments) are retargeted onto all five skeletons automatically, with bone-angle error measured and foot placement corrected.

    MixamoRetarget probe

  5. Assemble live in the engine

    The creator loads a rig plus your chosen parts and recolours in real time. The same pipeline builds the 272 ready-made citizens.

    Godot 4

  6. Pose correction & capture review

    Interactions like eating, drinking and holding a guitar get arm IK passes, then are rendered from fixed cameras and reviewed frame by frame.

    Capture tools
Measured, not eyeballed

Before and after an IK pass.

Consuming food uses a mirrored arm clip plus inverse kinematics so the hand actually reaches the mouth. Every fix like this is captured from the same camera before and after, and checked by a person.

Character eating an apple before the arm IK correction: the hand stops short of the mouth
Before
Character eating an apple after the arm IK correction: the apple reaches the mouth
After
Systems

Everything talks to everything else.

Your sleep affects your show. Your show affects your fans. Your fans change what strangers say to you on the bus.

Live rhythm shows

Street, open mic, venue sets, piano and drums. Four lanes, holds, star phrases and a hype meter, timed to the audio clock.

Songwriting

Four stages played in the world: lyrics, instrument, vocals and production. Quality comes from skill, inspiration and studio tier.

Streaming & charts

Daily streams, hype curves, weekly royalties and local charts against rival artists.

Fame stages

Real fan headcounts and releases unlock the next room, up to the amphitheatre and stadium.

A street musician busking on a lively city promenade lined with cafés
Production

The road to December 2026.

The life-sim half of the game is alpha-complete. The next thirteen weeks are about going public, locking scope, and making the music career loop solid enough to hand to players.

  1. Sep 2026

    Steam app & store page

  2. Early Oct

    Coming Soon page + announcement trailer

  3. Mid Oct

    Early Access scope lock

  4. Late Oct

    Playtest wave 1

  5. Mid Nov

    Playtest wave 2

  6. Late Nov

    Release candidate & Steam review

  7. Early Dec

    Launch trailer & creator keys

  8. Dec 2026

    Early Access launch

How we build it

Nine gates every feature passes.

  1. Design doc & binding contract

    Every feature starts as a written design with concrete numbers: formulas, example values, where it happens in the world and which animation plays. Big features get several specialist design passes merged into one binding contract before code is written.

  2. Ownership & hook requests

    Systems are built in parallel with strict ownership. When one system needs a change in another, it files a hook request and ships a working fallback, so nothing blocks.

  3. In-engine prototype

    Small, data-driven modules that run outside the full game, so the same code the player uses can be exercised in seconds. Measured, never guessed: hit frames, prop sizes, floor heights.

  4. Automated headless tests

    Each system ships with a test that must report zero problems. The full verify pass runs in about 35 seconds and never touches a real save.

  5. Bot play-throughs

    Scripts drive the real game with real key presses: a bot plays show notes, pays at the till, hails a taxi, works a shift, and writes a frame-by-frame report.

  6. Visual capture review

    Capture tools render named camera angles, HUD states and screens at fixed resolutions, and every image is reviewed by a person.

  7. Performance budget

    Heavy scenes are measured against the 16.7 ms frame budget at their worst moment, fixed, and re-measured with the same tool.

  8. Playtest

    Internal play, then invite-only waves built around one question each. Findings go back into the design docs.

  9. Ship

    Builds go out with save migrations, Steam cloud saves and patch notes, and the public roadmap is updated with every major update.

Roadmap

From concept to 1.0.

Every phase from first pitch to post-launch. Shipped phases are green, the ones in production now are gold.

Shipped In production Planned
  1. Q1 2026 Shipped

    Concept & pre-production

    Took the text-based Pop Star Life into a 3D open city. Audited the first game to decide what carries over, and locked the engine, art and animation pipelines.

    • Sequel pitch: a small-town musician's life in a living 3D city
    • Audit of the first game's career systems
    • Godot 4 tech stack and modular character pipeline for five body types
    • Asset index for 1,600+ city and interior pieces and a searchable sound library
  2. Q2 2026 Shipped

    Vertical slice

    The first hour, playable end to end: leave your mother's village house, ride the dolmuş into the city, create your character and play your first street set.

    • Opening sequence: village, dolmuş ride, city arrival
    • Character creator
    • Rhythm-based street busking with crowd reactions
    • First venue interiors, shopping and eating
  3. Q2–Q3 2026 Shipped

    Production & internal alpha (0.9.0)

    The open-city life sim is feature-complete for alpha, with every system covered by automated tests and visual capture review.

    • 45 venue interiors, home renting/buying and a decoration mode
    • Day/night clock with sleep, economy with banking and loans
    • 12 playable side jobs and a 13-skill passive skill book
    • Live shows: busking, open mic, concerts, piano and drums
    • NPC social system, traffic, taxis, buses, dolmuş lines and driving
    • Combat, stealth and wanted system; casino with 6 games; leisure mini games
  4. Sep–Oct 2026 In production

    Steam store page & announcement

    Going public now, so the Coming Soon page has at least eight weeks to collect wishlists before launch.

    • Steam app setup, store page and capsule art (English and Turkish)
    • Coming Soon page live in October
    • In-engine announcement trailer
    • Press kit on rakuninteractive.com, Discord and Steam community hub
  5. Sep–Oct 2026 In production

    Alpha hardening & scope lock

    Making the world solid enough to ship, and freezing the Early Access feature list by mid-October.

    • City rebuilt to a 1,504 m map
    • Crowd and traffic performance (evening rush hour from 5 to 45 FPS in testing)
    • UI audit fixes across HUD, menus, transit, driving and decoration
    • Versioned save migrations and safe-save rules
    • Early Access scope locked: anything not green moves to a named update
  6. Sep–Nov 2026 In production

    Music career foundations

    The launch version of the career loop: write, record, release, chart, get famous. Deeper layers arrive in the first updates.

    • Four-stage songwriting played in the world: lyrics, instrument, vocals, production
    • Starter studios and single releases
    • Streaming with daily streams, hype and weekly royalties
    • Local charts against rival artists
    • Fame tiers and fans as real headcount
    • Phone with career apps; story chapters 1–3
  7. Oct–Nov 2026 Planned

    Closed playtests

    Two focused Steam Playtest waves, each built around one question.

    • Wave 1 (late Oct): the opening and first hours (onboarding, controls, clarity)
    • Wave 2 (mid Nov): first song to first chart entry (pacing, economy, long saves, mid-range PC performance)
    • Feedback surveys and a public known-issues list
  8. Late Nov 2026 Planned

    Release candidate & launch prep

    Content freeze and bug-fix only. The build goes to Steam review with time to spare.

    • Content freeze and release candidate build
    • Steam build and store review
    • Launch trailer, press and content-creator keys
    • Day-one patch branch prepared
  9. December 2026 Planned

    Early Access launch

    Launch in early December, ahead of the Steam Winter Sale. If the career loop isn't solid, the date moves; we won't ship it half-built.

    • The full 0.9 open city plus the write → record → release → chart → fame loop
    • Story chapters 1–3
    • English and Turkish UI
    • Steam achievements and cloud saves
    • Public roadmap and patch cadence announced on day one
  10. Dec 2026 – Jan 2027 Planned

    Launch support

    The first six weeks belong to players: fast fixes, balance and listening.

    • Day-one patch and weekly hotfixes through the holidays
    • Economy and pacing balance from real save data players choose to share
    • Community poll on update priorities
  11. Feb – Dec 2027 Planned

    Early Access major updates

    Six themed major updates, roughly every eight weeks, with smaller patches in between.

    • Studio & Albums
    • Lights, Camera, Viral
    • On the Road
    • Labels & Rivals
    • Band & Relationships
    • Own the Scene
  12. Q1 2028 Planned

    Beta / content complete

    No new systems: the final story chapter, a full-career balance pass and stability.

    • Story chapter 7 "Legacy" and the stadium finale
    • Balance pass from street corner to stadium
    • Opt-in beta branch for the 1.0 candidate
    • Performance and accessibility pass
  13. Q2 2028 Planned

    1.0 release

    The complete career, about 16 months after Early Access launch.

    • Complete 7-chapter story line
    • All Early Access updates polished and integrated
    • 1.0 trailer and launch event
  14. Q3 2028 onward Planned

    Post-launch

    Support the live game and grow it where players ask for it most.

    • Quality-of-life and balance patches
    • Additional languages based on demand
    • Evaluating Steam Workshop and Steam Deck support
    • Free seasonal city events

Roadmap updated 2026-09-14 · windows are targets and may shift with playtest feedback.

Early Access

Launching December 2026. Growing with you through 2027.

“A career from street corner to stadium is best balanced by the people living it.”

At launch

The full open city + career foundations

45 venues, 12 jobs, homes, transport, driving, live shows, and the write → record → release → chart → fame loop. Story chapters 1–3.

~8-week cadence

Six major updates

Albums, music videos, touring, labels, bands and businesses, each a themed update with patches in between.

Q2 2028

1.0 release

The complete seven-chapter story and stadium finale, with every system polished and balanced.

Major updates

Feb 2027

Studio & Albums

Deeper recording careers

  • EPs and albums with track selection
  • Higher studio tiers up to concert-hall studios
  • Album charts alongside singles
  • Remixes, producers and session players
  • Story chapters 4–5
Apr 2027

Lights, Camera, Viral

Music videos & social media

  • Music video shoots on real city locations
  • Premiere night with a live view counter
  • Video platform ad revenue; short-video and fan-wall apps
  • Viral waves: NPCs dancing to your trending song
  • Paparazzi and PR moments
Jun 2027

On the Road

Touring & new destinations

  • Tour planner with travel days, crew and ticket sales
  • Playable amphitheatre and stadium shows
  • District fame, neighbourhood by neighbourhood
  • A compact new destination reachable from the airport
Aug 2027

Labels & Rivals

The music industry pushes back

  • Record label offers: sign or stay independent
  • Rival artists with persistent careers and chart battles
  • Manager negotiations with skill checks
  • Awards night
Oct 2027

Band & Relationships

The people around you

  • Form a band: recruit, rehearse, share the stage
  • Friendships, dating and rivalries with city NPCs
  • Mentor a young street musician
  • Family storyline and returning to the village
Dec 2027

Own the Scene

Businesses & giving back

  • Buy and run venues, host your own open mic nights
  • Business income and staff
  • Charity concerts and reputation recovery
  • Story chapter 6 and the village benefit concert
Early Access FAQ

Straight answers before you buy.

These are the same answers we give on the Steam store page.

Why Early Access?

Pop Star Life 2 is a big systemic sim: an open city, a daily-life economy and a music career that all feed each other. The best way to balance a career that runs from a street corner to a stadium is with players living it. Early Access from December 2026 lets us tune the economy, pacing and story with you while we build the systems still to come: albums, music videos, touring, labels, bands and businesses.

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

About 15–18 months, with 1.0 targeted for Q2 2028. We'll share an updated estimate with every major update and say so openly if the schedule changes.

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

1.0 adds the complete 7-chapter story with its finale, EPs and albums with higher studio tiers, full music video production and social media, touring and a new destination, record labels and rival artists, bands and relationships, and venue ownership, plus a balance pass across the whole career and broad polish.

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

At launch you get the full open-city life sim: 45 venue interiors, 12 side jobs, homes to rent, buy and decorate, rhythm-based live shows, traffic and public transport, driving, a skill book, banking and a casino. You also get the career foundations: write songs in four stages, record and release singles, earn streams and royalties, climb the local charts and grow your fame, with story chapters 1–3. Expect rough edges and balance changes.

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

We plan to launch below the intended 1.0 price and raise it as major content lands, with notice before any change. Everyone who buys in Early Access gets every update and 1.0 at no extra cost.

How are you planning on involving the community?

Through closed playtests before launch, Discord and Steam forums, an in-game feedback prompt and a public roadmap updated with every major update. We'll poll the community on quality-of-life priorities and on the order of later updates, and patch notes will credit the player reports they fixed.

Which platforms will Pop Star Life 2 be on?

PC (Windows) on Steam. We'll evaluate Steam Deck and controller-first UI after launch. No console versions are announced.

Will my save survive Early Access updates?

That's the goal. Saves are versioned and older saves are migrated forward automatically. If an update ever has to break compatibility, we'll announce it in advance and keep the previous version on a Steam beta branch.

What languages are supported?

The interface ships in English and Turkish. More languages will be considered for 1.0 based on player demand.

Do I need to have played the first Pop Star Life?

No. Pop Star Life 2 is a standalone sequel. It keeps the first game's long climb from nothing, rebuilt as a 3D city you walk, drive and perform in. The main story never requires crime; the city's darker side is optional.

Launch news

Be there when the doors open.

Get the Steam page announcement, playtest invites and the Early Access launch date first.