Petroglyph Earthbreakers Developer Diary – March 6, 2020
Hello everyone and welcome to our first Earthbreakers Developer Diary! We are going to be doing regular Developer Diaries to let the community know what we’ve been working on. To this end, we want to give you direct insight and create an active dialogue for input of suggestions and ideas. Today we are going to focus mostly on what Earthbreakers is, where the idea came from, and our emphasis on how we are shaping it into its own identity.
Firstly, Earthbreakers would likely fit into a Strategy-Shooter genre. As a team who has spent decades working in Real-Time Strategy, we wanted to bring that experience into the First Person Shooter genre to allow players to explore strategic decision making over the course of a match. Our core focus has been on team play through base building and progression in a fast-paced environment.
As many of you may know, many of our team here at Petroglyph were involved in Command & Conquer: Renegade as part of our Westwood Studios roots. The concept of Renegade has been something we’ve always wanted to revisit, and as such has played a large part in our inspiration for Earthbreakers. But from the very beginning it was very important that Earthbreakers was not a remake or reskin of Renegade. Instead our focus has been on evolving Earthbreakers into its own identity.
Two of the core areas that we are focusing on are base-building and progression, as mentioned above. This emphasis gives players strategic freedom in match progression. Structures, like an RTS, build over time with a standard build order. This is something that will happen automatically, but players can donate to structure construction to reduce build times or build structures out of order. This gives teams an opportunity to work together and devise strategies to surprise the other team. In addition to base building, we have an RTS/Strategy-like tech tree. Items in the tech tree can either apply to the individual or to the team. During each match, these items will unlock new weapons or abilities, various consumables, and stat buffs for all aspects of the game. This provides ownership for the individual as they mold their experience to fit their playstyle, while promoting opportunity for teams to fine tune their strategies.
As we move forward, we will be looking for more ways to engage with our community to share what we have been working on and gather feedback and ideas from everyone! If you haven’t, be sure to join our Petroglyph Discord, or visit the Steam Forums to join in the discussion!
