Hi there!
Welcome to our August Devlog! First, we want to thank everyone who participated in our Closed Beta in May and took the time to share their thoughts with us. We received valuable feedback through your survey responses and messages, and we truly appreciate everyone who took the time to contribute.
Our focus is now on preparing the game for Early Access. We are not planning to hold any additional public tests before then.
As for dates, we know many of you have been eagerly waiting for an update. Unfortunately, we still can’t confirm anything yet. However, we can share what we’ve been working on over the past few months. We’ve made significant progress on essential systems and the story.
- First, we received a lot of positive feedback about the new controls and free movement. However, some players felt that heroes with several forward facing attacks were still a bit clunky to control. To address this, we added diagonal directions to nearly every frontal ability. Most abilities can now be cast directly toward the mouse cursor, making combat feel smoother, more precise and more responsive. Here are a few examples:
- Another system players were not satisfied with was how Artifacts worked, so we redesigned it. Instead of relying on limited charges, Artifacts now consume Focus, a resource your hero generates during combat. This means you no longer have to worry about using all your charges too early or saving them for so long that you never use them at all.
- A third Artifact slot was also added, creating more build variety and giving you room to bring situational Artifacts without sacrificing the essential parts of your build. We also plan to unlock an additional Trophy slot in the future. Each Artifact has its own Focus cost, giving you the choice between using one as soon as it becomes available or continuing to build Focus for another Artifact. This makes situational Artifacts much more practical, since you can save your Focus and activate them when the right moment arises. You can accumulate up to 300 Focus. The interface displays a Focus bar with clear markers for each Artifact’s cost, making it easy to track how much Focus you have and when each Artifact becomes available. ➜ For example, the Cryo Emblem costs 60 Focus, while the Scroll of Arcane Ward costs 120. By accumulating 180 Focus, you can use the Cryo Emblem while keeping enough Focus in reserve to activate the Arcane Ward when needed. Alternatively, you can accumulate the full 300 Focus to use the Cryo Emblem while reserving enough for the Phoenix Feather, which costs 240 Focus.
- The Ability HUD has been updated and now combines the Artifacts, Orbs and Trophies menus into a single interface, making it much easier to see and manage your builds and switch between presets. This interface can also be accessed directly from the PvP Hero Selection screen, allowing you to adjust your build before a match.
- We’ve finished developing the Player Market, which is now fully complete! As an essential feature for any MMORPG, it allows players to buy and sell nearly every type of item, including orbs, emotes, artifacts, equipment, mounts, displays, pets, dyes and general materials. The Market can be accessed through a dedicated NPC found in every major city and village. You can also apply filters and browse items by category or hero.
- The PvP Custom Game system we mentioned previously is now complete. Players can create private matches, choose the game mode and map, invite other players or join as spectators. Custom Games also support exclusive modes such as Duels and larger 5v5 matches instead of the standard 3v3 format. Hosts can extensively customize each match by adjusting damage, cooldowns, match duration, artifact availability and many other settings. They can also enable competitive rules such as hero bans and draft picks. 🏆 This system opens up new possibilities for community-driven events, especially for streamers who want to organize their own tournaments. We also plan to introduce official tournaments in the future, creating more opportunities for players to compete at a higher level.
- We’ve also finished a new map for the PvP Escort mode and two for duels.
- After switching to free movement and mouse aiming, the previous controller scheme became difficult and unintuitive. Even after mastering it, playing with a controller was still less comfortable than using a mouse. Because of this, we completely reworked the controller experience to make movement and ability use much smoother and more intuitive. While the game does not use a traditional targeting system, controller players can now select a nearby enemy as a temporary aiming reference using the right stick. This makes it much easier and comfortable to play. These improvements also apply to the Steam Deck.
- The Mail system, another essential feature for launch, is now complete. It allows us to send players important server announcements, update notes, rewards, gifts and other relevant information directly in game.
- While these systems are being developed, our game designers remain focused on quests, cities and the main storyline. This is currently the least advanced part of the game and the main factor holding back our release. The good news is that we’ve hired and trained additional team members and are now making steady progress. All the systems and artwork shown here are being developed in parallel by other parts of the team, without taking resources away from content development.
- As we mentioned before, the artists are advanced in development so they can manage to add cosmetics and improve the game overall. We’ve removed all art that wasn’t pixel art in the hud, only the abilities were left to change, so, they are redoing all ability icons now, and it's looking amazing!
- We’ve also created a new skin for Yuki, complete with three matching accessories. As always, its colors can be fully customized.
- Not only skins, now you can have cosmetic effects for hero abilities! These effects are separate from skins, allowing you to use them with any skin available for that hero.
That’s all for this devlog! We’d also like to invite you to join our Discord. We're constantly sharing teasers and chatting with our community there. Come say hi! 👋
Thank you again for your trust and continued support ! ❤️