Speaking to Engadget, Roccat's marketing manager Tuan Mai revealed that Sick City will be released in beta this summer. Keen to involve its community in the game's development, the studio will also be releasing a closed alpha for Sick City as early as next month

In terms of who's actually making the game, Roccat is keeping its cards close to its chest. "We can't go into specifics on who at the time," states Mai "but I can tell you that the team is composed of experienced developers that have worked at other game studios in Hamburg before." With Hamburg's development scene still fairly small, Roccat Games Studio could well consist of developers from Bigpoint and Goodgame. With the former developer known for strategy title Goodgame Empire and the latter behind Battlestar Galactica Online, their experience lends itself well to Sick City.

Surprisingly, this isn't actually the first time a peripheral manufacturer has attempted to get involved with making games. With accessory sales on the decline, MadCatz entered into a publishing deal with Harmonix, funding and distributing Rock Band 4. Unfortunately for Madcatz, the game bombed - bankrupting the company. Without the burden of shipping and building thousands of expensive plastic instruments, let's hope that Sick City goes a little better for Roccat.

Update: An earlier version of this article stated, as we were told by Roccat, that the game would launch on Steam's Early Access program in August. The company has since been in touch to say that may not be the case, so mention of Steam has been removed from the article.