As announced previously, our focus has been on improving performance and polishing the game but that isn’t all that’s in the pipeline for Verdun. We’ve already mentioned bots, sound overhaul and the UI overhaul, but we’ve also had a range of requests for new content and features. Today we are excited to share our plans with you!
Below we have a list of planned new content and features based on our expected release dates. Keep in mind things can change - we’ll do our best to keep you in the loop. When release dates are confirmed, we will highlight it here. You can follow the current state of development and our plans for both Verdun and Tannenberg here. We will be updating this roadmap around the beginning of each month.
Be aware that the listing below (and roadmap items in the same quarter) have no specific order. Some tasks are unrelated to each other and run in parallel, while others have dependencies. This means that items that have been planned in the far future can be already in progress, or partially complete but waiting for another items to be completed first.
Planned for Q3, 2018
Networking Update
Alongside our continued updates to chase down bugs and make gameplay improvements such as the spawning changes to reduce spawn killing, we are working on sound and networking. You can already try out the new sound system and give us feedback - check out this post to find out how.
We are also planning to make a significant push to improve our networking code. Our focus will be on providing a smoother experience and less stuttering player characters if they have a bad connection.
New Squad
We have a new squad planned for Verdun! A squad that has been much requested by the community will be joining the Western Front! This will be a completely free content addition.
Planned for Q4, 2018
Another Squad!
In fact, we have not one but two squads planned! This squad we’re going to leave as a surprise - what we can say is that it will be representing some of the lesser-known combatants involved in significant actions on the Western Front. This will also be completely free content addition.
New Map!
Verdun already covers a wide variety of battlefields, but we’ve been inspired by community suggestions and have a new map planned! We’ll drop more details and teasers in the coming months, but it will continue the tradition of being distinct from existing maps. This will be a completely free content addition.
In-game Report System
The user feedback and bug reports on our support website have been very useful, so we are planning to add a tool which makes it easy to report issues from inside the game itself. This system will also allow people to effectively report harassment, griefers, and potential cheaters so we can gather some solid data alongside reports.
Map Voting
By community request, we are planning to add a way for players to vote in the game on which map they want to battle on next. This will not be an option to vote for all available maps but rather a choice between two maps.
Bots
We are working on adding optional bots to the Frontlines game mode and we hope to be able to release them before the end of the year. Of course anything to do with AI can be unpredictable in terms of how long it takes to complete, but Q4 is what we’re hoping for.
Prestige System
Many of our players are Verdun veterans and we thought it would be nice to add a system to show off that veterancy. Currently the max player level is 100 - we would like to offer the chance to go beyond that and show a different rank icon for each prestige tier you gain.
New User Interface
We’ve been teasing the upcoming user interface overhaul for a while now and our plan is to release it before the end of the year! We will make sure all of the current features will also be available in the new UI and plan to gather early user feedback in the same manner as we did with the sound update.
Planned for Q1, 2019
Tutorial
We have also been looking into the creation of an improved tutorial for Verdun. Trench warfare is a challenge for the inexperienced and it can feel very harsh when people start playing Verdun. Anything we can do to address this and make new players more likely to stick around is good news.
New Languages
Another addition to the game we have been considering is support for more languages. For instance, by request we are looking at adding support for simplified and traditional Chinese. This could also help boost the population of the servers in South-East Asia.
Planned for Q2, 2019
Big Console Update
As console is much more complex to update compared to Steam, we haven’t been able to do as many updates to the console versions of Verdun as we’d like. But now we have a plan for a very substantial update (hopefully early next year) which would bring all the fixes, improvements, and new content we’ve created into the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game.
Ongoing
Performance improvements and bug fixes will be ongoing of course! We recently released a large update with bug fixes and gameplay improvements and we will carry on making progress here.These items will continue to be a priority even as we introduce the other new content. Your user reports on our support website have been instrumental here, and we’ll continue to be steering our efforts based on player input there.
Supporter’s Edition
Following our release of the Supporter’s Edition in Tannenberg, we have had requests for a similar DLC for Verdun as well. It’s great to hear that some of you would like to support the game even more! We’ve been developing Verdun for over five years now with free content from new squads and maps to the Horrors of War update and the Christmas Truce. Everything on this roadmap is going to be completely free as well. Purchases of the Supporter’s Edition DLCs are completely optional and help us keep on cranking out the updates!