We are thrilled to announce that Hope's End is now officially live in Early Access on Steam!
This is just the start of the journey and we have tons of content we are still working on adding to the game, more details below on that. With this initial release into EA we are hoping to get as much player feedback as possible to make the game great.
As a team we have a passion for single player games that let you just pick up and play for 20 minutes or 3 hours. We have played our fair share of games with weekly resets and hardcore PVP and they are great, but they aren't the thing that captures our hearts. With Hope's End we are hoping that we capture that feeling of deep progression and skill cap to unlock and chase but balanced with the feeling that it is a game you can pick up AND put down whenever you want without pressure to keep up with everyone else.
Now that EA release is out, please join us on our Discord, and give us your feedback. We have a vision for where the game is going, but a major part of that vision is how the community engages with it. As a 3 person team we count on our players to help us see new ideas and ways to improve existing features. This has already been happening with our awesome Beta testers and the game is completely different then it would have been without them.
Now about that roadmap....
First, we have disabled leaderboards for the time being. We didn't have a chance to properly encrypt and secure the save file so we didn't want to encourage shenanigans with hacked high scores out of the gate. We absolutely think that playing the game without hacking your save file is the best experience, but it is a single player game and you can do what you want (don't blame us if you break stuff). But you can see how they can conflict with public leaderboards. Anyways, this is something we will continue to kick around with the community.
Stormcaller Specialization
We were able to fit this into the Early Access build and it is playable now. The first of our second set of 6 Specializations (12 total).
The Matriarchs & our next Specialization
The Matriarchs update will introduce the leaders of the Blighted as boss encounters during a game. Some of them will be spawned with specific triggers that you can control, others will be a bit harder to manage when they show up. When they do show up you will need to focus your attention on bringing them down before they bring complete destruction to the valley and Hope's End. Each will have it's own special mechanics that you will have to learn and deal with.
We will have more details on the next Specialization in the coming weeks.
Val Upgrades
We fully expect Val to be a character that is both loved and loathed. For us she is the result of countless hours hanging out with Claptrap and GLaDOS and a key part to making Hope's End come alive. The Val update will make her more than just a voice in your head, she will actively be "helping" you in combat. She may malfunction from time to time and be less helpful they she would hope, but with a few upgrades and tweaks we are sure you can make her "useful" and possibly even adjust her sarcasm settings.
Steam Achievements
Yes there will be many Steam Achievements! We will likely add these rather soon, we just wanted things to settle down a bit in the development cycle first so they can be stable and things we keep.
New Maps
We have a lot of ideas bouncing around for where we go next with maps in Hope's End. This is a topic we will be discussing more with the community on Discord so please join in. The 1.0 release of Hope's End will have multiple maps and mission goals, that much we know for sure.
Thanks again for giving Hope's End a try and we look forward to seeing your high scores!