Earlier this month we were given a first look at the new Rollercoaster Tycoon World and the main common consensus was... not great. The game was pretty much compared to Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, one of the game's predecessors that came out over 10 years ago in 2004.
In a blog post though Executive Producer "Mattlab" said that the reason the game looks like it does right now is because it's in a pre-alpha state and has a long way to go before it is completed.
"Since the switchover of our development team this past Fall, we have focused on core functionality and 'under-the-hood' engine work. This is why there has not been significant visual progress on the title," he wrote. "Engine work is critical to the overall stability of a game, and it requires significant labor and time to get right. We knew in the Fall we still had a lot of work to do to achieve the core engine we wanted—one that could support a game like RCTW. Now, however, we are able to finally continue working on the higher level functionality and visuals."
He does say that Atari hopes to have the updated graphics ready to show off this summer. "We hope to take full advantage of the many new environmental, lighting, and shadow improvements as well as many other features in our original Unity 4.6-based engine to create a game that looks great. Our early results are extremely promising."
As of yet, there is no launch date for the game but it's fair to say that a date should be announced sometime this year.