Greetings Romans!
...and happy Saturnalia!
The year 2025 is almost over, and what a year it has been. As 2025 comes to a close and our hard working dev team takes some time off for the holidays, we'd like to reflect on the year that's been and talk about what's to come.
2025 - A Brief Review
Safe to say that while we've been working on the game for a few years now, 2025 was by far the biggest one for us. We finally got to let the world know about Romestead!
And what an explosive start it was for us! Revealing the game at Future Games Show back in March was an extremely fun and exciting experience! We were blown away by the response as thousands of you came rushing immediately.
Safe to say we've had a busy year, and it'll get even busier next year!
2026 - What's Next
Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is Romestead.
Development on Romestead is stronger and better than ever. In the months since our announcement the game has drastically improved with either new features or updated mechanics - some of which we'll mention below this.
Due to this, news and posts on social medias has slowed down a ton, but we're kicking back into old fashion when we return from our holidays in early January.
While Romestead is not releasing in 2025, we'll have some exciting news to share with you in the new year. so do stay tuned to our channels and social medias!
What Are We Working On?
The full list of all the things we're working on is way too long for a post like this, but we can give you some tidbits of the things we're most excited for!
Brave New World
Something that's seen a lot of changes during the past year is the world that you spawn into, both visually and mechanically. Not only have we updated a lot of the assets graphics, but we've also added tonnes of new flora and fauna to come across in your journeys.
Buildings now act differently per biome. A blacksmith will always have a lit furnace and get a big boost from being in the volcano, while the swamp boosts farmland productivity. Lumberyards thrive in the forest, but can no longer exist in the desert or volcanic biomes.
The world generation has also seen lots of updates, such as the satyrs gradually getting more and more of a foothold in the desert (visually).
The satyrs have set up a big barricade at the desert entrance to act as an initial challenge, and massive camps around the desert to show that this is their domain.
The volcano has also been given tonnes of love, from lots of new dungeons and locations to discover, to resource deposits and unique behaviour to building a town there.
The amount of new locations and dungeons across the world have tripled, ranging from large dungeons with extensive puzzles and obstacles, to tiny little hideaways with some supplies inside. We decreased the distance between them as well, making exploration rewarding and fun. But be aware! Some dungeons and treasures may be a bit harder to spot immediately!
Comparing the world of Romestead from the start of the playtest to where it is now is night and day. The world is alive and beautiful, and it's hard not to stop and appreciate the sounds and visuals every now and then!
Progression & Lore
It became evident quite fast that our implemented tutorials were not up to the speed and task of where they needed to be, so the way we display and show information has gone from simple textboxes with text (and maybe an image if you were lucky) to animated windows and pop-ups!
Additionally, we've added a helpful figure to the start of the game that can help you with answering some questions and let you know where to go!
In order to help you find your next objective and encourage exploration, we've also introduced god quests, where each god will have quests tied to them to unlock rewards and worship points. This requires you to head out into the world and retrieve items, defeat enemies, or complete other objectives!
God quests also allows us to gradually unlock the story for the player, as the gods slowly gain power and retrieve their memories!
Because of the increased exploration incentive, we've also given our map a big overhaul. Rather than simply showing you where to go, we're now letting you place markers, see discovered dungeons and their names, as well as reveal boss locations on the map!
Another change to progression is the favour trees. Playtesters will know that the trees used to be tied to gods, and you could only access a tree once you had unlocked a specific god. This would cause a disconnect where some players would save favour points forever, unable to unlock gods because of lack of access to certain items.
So now, it's a big tree with different paths instead, more in line with how you'd normally see a talent tree in other games. Testing of this new method has revealed it to be a better and more popular solution. Plus! It allowed us to add even more favours!
Living World
Having playtesters has allowed us to both experiment with certain features, or tweak ones that have been in the game. Raids for example (covered in an earlier post) used to be frequent events that occurred every few days.
Playtesters reported on this being very annoying, as it was a mechanic that was very "anti-exploration", forcing players to constantly return home to defend it. The solution was to make raids much rarer, and having it be an optional feature to take part in for rewards.
Weapon swapping, upgradeable carts, teleporting between towns, and much more are features heavily requested by the community, that has been enriching the experience and encouraging both combat and exploration.
Romestead has been shaped into something that feels alive and dense, and that is in no small part thanks to our community, and we'd like to extend a big warm "Thank You!" to everyone who has had a chance to participate and share feedback!
Some Recent Additions/Upgrades:
More Bosses - Oh yes, and not only main bosses this time. We've got the optional kind too, with unique mechanics and rewards. One new bird, one more for the desert, and a massive one for the volcanic biome!
This makes the total count of bosses in the game 5, and more are coming!
Quests & Lore - We've taken steps towards incorporating more of the lore in the game for players to find out, and this is partially done through items, but more importantly through quests! We are working on adding a big variety of quests from both gods and citizens that gives rewards, loyalty, and worship!
Buildings - We're adding more buildings, construction materials, and functionality to the buildings. That means biome-based boosts/detriments to productions, more crafting recipes, and more decorations to make your town beautiful!
Improved Map - Our world map has gone from simply showing what you've explored, to a tool that lets you place markers, see revealed dungeons, and see quest and boss locations!
More Favours - It's been a while since our post on favours and worship, and since then we've decided to update and upgrade - adding tonnes more options for your build and a new, clearer way to display them!
Exploration - We are adding a whole lot more of everything to encourage adventuring out into the world. Just in the past 2 months, we've added over 50 new locations to discover, and over 20 new dungeons to delve into. All with their own treasure to find!
Polish - Gone with the old, in with the new. We're focusing a little extra on removing all the programmer art and debug icons, fixing up temporary VFX and placeholder assets. Even things like drop-tables and game-feel is getting a bit of a lift.
Closing Remarks
And so the year, and this post, comes to an end.
We're extremely proud and excited about the game and it's progress, and we are burning with anticipation to show it to you in the year to come.
Thank you all *so* much for being here.
All of us at Beartwigs want to wish you happy holidays, and a fantastic, exciting new year.
Roma Aeterna!
- The Beartwigs Team