Coming on the heels of one of the best presentations at the Texas Pinball Festival and one of the most transparent that I've ever seen, American Pinball has been generating a lot of excitement lately. So what is in store for the company in the future? Here's what I'm hearing...keeping in mind that these are all rumors at this point.
American already has at least its next six pinball machines lined up. Four of them are unlicensed and two are licensed themes. This information was sourced prior to the recent announcement by AP that they will be manufacturing Barry Oursler's final game, so I do not know if it is included in these numbers. The Company would like to release two pinball machines per year for the next three years.
Two of the machines in the American queue were designed by Dennis Nordman. The first of which also happens to be American's next game. It is an unlicensed theme that supposedly is already 90% done, is flippable with working mechs, some animations and scoring. The pin has at least one ramp and a 6-ball multiball. People who have seen the game say that it is going to be amazing! Rumor has it that Nordman game #2 is a White Water sequel, similar to the game that he was working at while he was still at Deeproot Pinball, which I believe was called Yukon Yeti.
The next AP machine will not be ready to debut at the upcoming Midwest Gaming Classic. It likely will not be revealed at October's Pinball Expo in Chicago either. The addition of a third production line at American Pinball will help it get games out faster, but there is such an issue getting parts and so much interest in the company's current games that the next AP title may not be introduced until 2023. That seems like a long time to me, but time will tell. As I mentioned, like with all manufacturers these days, not just pinball, the supply chain continues to be an issue. American essentially gets in as many parts in as it can, builds as many machines as it can with those parts and then waits for more parts to arrive.
As for some of the other American games in the pipeline, one of them is rumored to have been designed by Riot Pinball like the current game Legends of Valhalla. Some have said that the next AP - Riot game will be Riot's well-known Wrath of Olympus pin, which that has been out for several years in a small quantity. It seems to me as though that theme might be a little to close to Valhalla though so we'll see.
Speaking of American Pinball, around an hour ago, the company dropped its latest code update for Legends of Valhalla, v 22.02.27.
