Hello Heroes!
This year is finally coming to an end! This blogpost will be a little special as it's not a "DLC blogpost" like usual, but we still have one more blogpost dedicated to the DLC coming up in January 😉 So this time, we wanted to do a very special "Holidays" blogpost!
For The Last Blogpost (before 2026), we have a lot of things to discuss with you, so let’s go!
Meet the team of Tales of Torment!
Some of you may know us from the Discord server (and if you haven’t already, join our awesome community), but we thought the holidays would be a cool time to know more about the people who’ve been working hard on the DLCs of the game 😉 So, everyone working on the DLCs of The Last Spell had a little something to share with you all!
Manon Fontaine, Producer:
My job is a bit of a mix between a happiness manager and a living reminder. I make sure everyone is in the right mindset to do their work: prioritizing certain tasks so we can make a trailer for marketing, postponing other parts because the game designers aren’t sure yet (to avoid changing everything fifteen times), and regularly reminding everyone about small details we had put aside. Basically, my goal is to offer the team a space where they can create calmly, without having to think about all of that. It’s not always easy, it’s real teamwork, with constant adjustments. I wasn’t there for the release of DLC 2 because I was busy creating a little baby, so I’m really excited to be part of the release of DLC 3! And during the holidays, between two snails (yes, I’m French…), I’ll probably finally finish Cult of the Lamb. Honestly, it’s a bit like my job when I think about it…
Victor Ternisien, Game Designer:
Hello! Victor here. You may remember me from the recent blogposts. I'm one of the Game Designers on the team, and I tend to focus a bit more on the balancing & numbers side of the game. I am currently hard at work trying to balance out all of the things we are adding in the new DLC, which represents... a LOT, given the vast amount of Epiphanies we have added. Beta testers have given us ample feedback, and the challenge is now to improve as many things as possible, while staying within the development schedule and keeping the content accessible to newer players.
During the winter break, I plan on playing a bit of Victoria 3's newest DLC, and probably a lot of boardgames with friends and family - my favorite at the moment being "Earth", which I wholeheartedly recommend if you are a seasoned boardgame player.
Robin Fau, Game Designer
Hello! My name is Robin, aka Biggs, and I’m in charge of the GD team for the DLCs of The Last Spell. Thanks to the team, we were able to put in place the different features of this DLC (and the previous ones, of course)… And how cool was it to work on that!
I’m especially proud of having been able to experiment so much on this DLC and make it a bit more roguelike and unpredictable, while respecting the philosophy of the game.
Offering systems like divergences and Ordeals was something complicated to put in place, but it turned out to be very fun to allow players to show their capacity to adapt and also try new strategies. And it’s all connected by the Epiphanies, that really let you create your fantasy of overpowered hero saving what’s left of the world!
And outside the systemic design, I also work on the whole narrative parts and the localization of the DLCs. (Nothing better than a dwarf yelling on an elf!)
During the holidays, I’ll probably play Sulfur (Hello Simon!), and probably find a hack & slash that I’ll play way too much during the holidays… (Let’s face it, we all know it’s going to be Path of Exile 2).
Morgane Lainard, Game Designer
Hi there I'm Morgane, one of the game designers on the team. I focus on the user experience. I'm making sure that, when we are adding new content, all players, regardless of experience or play type, have the information needed to understand the new systems and that this info is delivered in an efficient manner for smooth and efficient decision making without sacrificing challenge or fun.
Which is quite the challenge with a game like The Last Spell!
By collecting and compiling feedback from the Discord and from the beta surveys, we could see that you all have very different play styles and wants and needs from the game. While making this DLC that affects a lot of game systems, it's been a fun juggling act for us to confront that feedback with our creative vision, while taking into consideration the experience of new and very experienced players alike.
I also try to improve usability wherever possible within our dev constraints and budget.
During the holidays, I will live my best dwarven life in the last DLC of Return to the Moria and prepare to GM the Tainted Grail tabletop RPG.
Simon Hembert, Programmer
This DLC is really different from its predecessors. As a programmer, I spent quite some time thinking about the architectures of the new features and create their foundations in the code. During the last few weeks, I’ve been working on improving the code and improving a million little things after the feedback we got during the previous betas.
More generally, on The Last Spell and our other games, a big part of my work is about integrating the UIs because we have a LOOOT of UIs.
During the holidays, I’ll probably keep playing Sulfur, an extract shooter (I blame my coworker Robin for introducing me to the game) and also Rocket League because I’m addicted to it 😊
Frederic Durey, Programmer
Hi, I'm Frederic and one of the programmers of the DLCs! In this DLC I mainly worked on epiphanies, it was fun to implement different effects.
I hope that with the content this dlc brings, it'll please a lot of players and that they will have fun in trying to play differently than they usually do.
Regarding the holidays, i think I'll play "And roger" and maybe finish "Coffee talk episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly". And if I find the time, start a chaos dwarves campaign in Total War Warhammer 3".
Adrien Feugere, Artist
Hi, I’m Adrien, I’m the main artist on the DLCs of The Last Spell! I also was in charge of the animations for the base game, so I’ve been working on the game for quite some time now!
I love working on the skills of the game, but I got to work on some of my favourite ones in this DLC! I’m very proud of the identity of the skills I was able to give to some of the weapons.
As a small holiday present, here are some animations I worked on for the epiphanies of this DLC
Bruno Laverny, Comms
And it’s my turn! I’ve been the main voice of Ishtar Games for quite some time now (almost 9 years!). I’m kind of multitask as I handle social media, community management, marketing, strategy, support… On this DLC specifically, I worked on organizing the beta sessions, oversaw the blogposts, pretty much everything related to the steam pages!
I had my birthday just a few days ago, so I know I’ll probably spend way too much time on JRPGs, this year I’ll play Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army, and I’ll take way too many pictures of my guinea pigs and my cat.
A Steamdeck update is coming!
We’re aware that a lot of Steamdeck users had some feedback regarding The Last Spell on the deck. We know this one has been a long time coming, but we can officially say that an official Steamdeck support is coming to The Last Spell next month!
So, if you’re getting a steamdeck under the tree this year, you’re in for a very good time! (on top of all the amazing games verified on steamdeck!).
Modding
As you may remember, we included modding in our roadmap that we had released last year. Modding is something that we REALLY wanted to do for a LONG time, but with ambitious DLCs and not infinite resources, that’s something we haven’t been able to properly do.
Unfortunately, we had to make the decision to cut our ambitions on modding for The Last Spell, at least for the time being.
That being said, we do have a little thing you’ll be able to mod before the release of the DLC, so please look forward to it!
Some fun numbers
As you may remember, in May 2024 we added some analytics to the game to understand analyze players’ behaviors so we can have more data about the balancing of the game, for instance.
For the first time, here are some fun numbers that we collected during that time:
Players launched more than 1 million runs
Most played maps: Lakeburg, Gildenberg, and then Elderlicht
We also have the most used perks:
Mana Growth for tier 1
Magic Fuel for tier 2
Runic Gift for tier 3
Critical Master for tier 4
Big Game Hunter for tier 5
Finally, we can talk about skills!
The most used skill is Centipedes (Druidic Staff) with over 4 million (!) uses
The deadliest skill is Shred (Axe) that killed over 2 million enemies
Happy Holidays!
And with that final note this blogpost comes to an end!
Now, we’re going to take a well deserved rest, sleep and eat way too much.
We can’t wait to launch Tales of Torment, coming early 2026! 😊