Knights and Mercs!
Since our full-launch in June, we've had an amazing first couple of months. We're thrilled that our 18 months in Early Access clearly paid off, completing a game that so many of you have already put dozens to hundreds of hours into. Like all of our games, we made Cyber Knights to be expanded further if it resonated with players the way we hoped it would, and your enthusiasm in the Steam forums, our Discord, and Steam reviews have clearly told us that you love this and want moar.
So now, we're excited to enter a new phase for Cyber Knights: Flashpoint - the ambitious post-launch roadmap! This covers a broad spread of new, free content we intend to add to the game, to expand the things players are enjoying the most, respond to the excellent feedback the explosion of new players has brought, deliver on commitments & collaborations with our original Kickstarters, and expand the reach of the game (and the player community) with new platforms and feature sets like modding.
We've bucketed the roadmap in a few sections: views into what we're currently working on, the types of content we expect to continually add to the game, and major standout feature expansions that we can commit to in the pipeline. It's not a comprehensive list of everything we're thinking about or workshopping based on community feedback / potential opportunities, but an already exciting list of what we can commit to so far.
We will keep this news post and the roadmap graphic below updated as we go with new achievements, milestones, and expansion!
Read more about any of the game's core systems on the official Cyber Knights: Flashpoint wiki.
Our Save Game Policy and Updates
First, since you're going to be seeing a lot of updates around here, we want to share our saved game policy up front so everyone understands our commitment to your games. No saved game will ever be invalidated by an update. All new content and features will be added immediately to all saved games (with the reasonable exception of New Game options). You never have to restart if you don't want to. This is a studio commitment that we have made and kept for many years and games. We stand by it. So do not stress about the deluge of updates that is coming your way - heist on my good heisters.
Long-Term Support
As a studio, we always aim to stick with our games long after launch, rewarding active player communities with new content and giving ourselves the opportunity to tell more stories, explore new possibilities, and continue to reach new players.
A finished game doesn't mean a static game -- instead of paid expansions or DLCs, we think ongoing free updates are the best way to keep the game growing, double down on the core experience, and constantly deepen the replay value.
Highlight: Companion Unit Classes
Character classes add a ton of variety to any tactical RPG, especially with multiclassing like ours. We currently have 54 possible multiclass combinations! More character classes will continue to deepen your bench of mercenary options, 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.
Highlight: 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 was 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.
Highlight: 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.
We launched Cyber Knights with several storylines ready-made for new content additions, and plan to add even more, as well as new proc-gen mission types and more multi-stage mission formats.
Those are just a few highlights of what's to come; take a look through the full roadmap graphic above for more. It's a bright future for our 23rd-century dystopia! Join us in Steam forums and our Discord; we're hyped to keep expanding this game with you.
See you on the streets, Knights. Let's keep this crew climbing.
