Our full launch is a little less than 3 weeks away! (Monday, June 2nd, at 9am Eastern Standard Time.)
Last week we shared a bit about our studio and how to stay in the loop on future projects (e.g. our Just-the-Big-News mailing list we've only sent four emails to in five years). This week we want to share some of our plans for post-launch content for Cyber Knights!
Games Made to Grow
Full launch is a huge milestone; a complete game, ready for everyone to play, with enough content to already offer hundreds of hours of replayability. And because this is a Trese Brothers game, there's a lot more to come.
Our last game, Star Traders: Frontiers, has received more than 270 updates of free post-launch content & support in the 7 years since it exited Early Access. The pace has slowed as Cyber Knights became our focus, but we continue to add content as we're able.
We dream big, but we're a small studio so we have to be smart about scoping. Especially as great ideas from players pour in during EA, we have to evaluate where to draw the line between needed improvements that will make the core game better (e.g. individual unit extraction, lots more movement alerts and HUD icons), nice-to-haves that will make good post-launch additions (e.g. mod support, weapon visual customization), and firmly out-of-scope ideas beyond our resources or design intent (e.g. multiplayer, destructible environments).
We love our games, and as long as they have enough active players and it's financially viable to do so, we continue to update them. As always from us, new content is made available to all existing playthroughs, and updates will never invalidate a save game.
Like Star Traders, if Cyber Knights is as successful as we hope it will be we'll continue to add content of all types (classes, missions, cosmetics, safehouse, contacts, etc.) for years to come. Later after launch we'll release an official roadmap to outline what we can commit to, but for now I can share a few exciting highlights...
Companion Unit Classes
Character classes add a ton of variety to any tactical RPG, especially with multiclassing like ours. By launch Cyber Knights will have 54 possible multiclass combinations! We plan to add more class options after launch, and one of the most exciting types are companion unit classes.
These classes will require a specialized cybernetic implant that gives them advanced control and coordination capabilities with different types of companion units you can acquire and take on missions. The Drone Pilot will manage a swarm of drones with varying capabilities, the Hunder can direct a pack of cybernetically-augmented warhunds, and the Assassin synchronizes their tactics with a lethally-enhanced big cat as stealthy and deadly as they are.
These classes will be significant free expansions, each with a corresponding safehouse room, recruitment storylines, variety of talents, and new mechanics for their companion units.
Mod Support
As gamers, we love modding, and it's always been our dream to enable modding capabilities for our games. It takes a lot of work to provide the necessary hooks, safeguards, and tools to enable this, but early in Cyber Knights' conception we decided this would be the game we'd make that leap for.
Reaching full launch is a critical first step; with game systems finalized and some initial groundwork already laid by our development process, we'll soon be able to start building the framework to enable modding for many components of Cyber Knights' gameplay. This will not be an early addition, but when it comes it will come with full Steam Workshop support and - hopefully - a nice starting set of mods from an advance crew of modders interested in trying our tools early.
If you're a modder yourself and would be interested in that, let us know.
Story and Mission Expansions
One of the things we're most proud of for Cyber Knights is the new "Casting Director" story engine we built. As you play, the Casting Director chooses from a pool of available storylines, each of which has a number of "roles" it can dynamically fill with squad members and contacts from your specific playthrough, based on background tags and traits they've developed as a result of how you've played.
This works hand-in-hand with the proc-gen mission system, which develops your characters and contacts through victories, failures, wounds, power plays, trait mutation, and more. Together, it makes it possible for each playthrough to feel dynamic and personalized - and the more content it has to go off of, the better it works.
We're still deciding on a reasonable scope to commit to for our first post-launch roadmap, but there's no doubt that further expanding story and mission content will keep your fun going in Cyber Knights for a long, long time.
Weapon Visual Customization
Originally slated to be done before launch, this is a feature we cut from the launch scope as it just wasn't feeling core enough to the game or in-demand enough to make it worth extending the launch timeline for. But, it is a cool feature for a cyberpunk mercenaries RPG so we do plan to loop back to implementing this, letting you visually customize and personalize your weapons in addition to the wide range of already-implemented weapon mods with in-game effects.
Moving Bodies
Also shifted from the original roadmap, we'll later add the ability for your mercs to drag bodies to different locations. We already have so many ways for your squad members to deal with bodies (and the ramifications of them being spotted) via talents and items. Moving bodies comes with its own tradeoffs, and in playtesting it wasn't feeling like a clearly superior or integral feature. When it's added, it will nicely round out your options for this aspect of the game, but it feels more supplemental than core, and we've shifted it to post-launch to make room for higher priorities.
Ports, Translations, and More
Cyber Knights launches with support for PC, Mac, Linux, and Steam Deck already under its belt, and fully rebindable controller support! After our first wave of post-launch content, we'll be starting work on mobile ports of the game for our dedicated fans on Android and iOS who enjoy having in-depth RPGs they can play on the go.
Console ports are definitely on our radar. Much depends on how well the game's release goes on Steam, though. If it performs as well as we hope, we have developer accounts created through Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo and would be thrilled to have our first console release further down the road.
Work on French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish translations continues; it is an intense and nuanced process! We'll have a more detailed post on where we stand with translation availability closer to launch, but regardless we would like to continue to expand the number of languages we translate to over time, depending on which regions we see the most wishlists coming from.
If you're bilingual and would like to get an early look & give us feedback on translations when they're available in your language, please let us know.
This Dark Future is Bright
Hope you've enjoyed this preview of what's to come. We'll release an official post-launch roadmap later down the line, but we are always happy to hear ideas and answer questions in Discord.
The more Cyber Knights succeeds, the more resources we'll have to keep growing it, so please spread the word on reddit (we're always thrilled to see Cyber Knights mentioned in r/GamingSuggestions), to content creators on YouTube or Twitch (let them know a squad-based strategy RPG you're hyped for is launching June 2nd), and in any gaming Discords you're part of.
We don't have that AAA publisher money to fund CGI short-film trailers or buy $250,000 showcase spots, 😅 so we hope you'll help us win the best way any game can: word of mouth.
Thanks for your support!