Hello there, Commanders!
🔥Today, we would like to talk about the transition from Gacha Game to Creature Collector RPG How Three Skies Became Three Skies Ascension
We first announced *Three Skies* here in 2023 as a gacha-style game, but since then, we've taken the project in an exciting new direction. With the release of *Three Skies Ascension*, the game has fully transitioned into a Creature Collector RPG. This post is for those of you who may have seen us a few years ago, and for anyone curious about how a gacha game can evolve into something hopefully deeper and more dynamic.
🚫No More Microtransactions. No More Gacha.
Unlike traditional gacha systems that rely on "pulls" and currency grinding, *Three Skies Ascension* offers capture-based recruitment similar to Pokémon and negotiation-based hero recruitment for a more organic and strategic experience.
You can still earn valuable Recruit Orders that give you a random hero drop, keeping a bit of that classic gacha-style excitement, but the core experience now focuses on player agency and gameplay-driven progression.
⚒️Rebuilding Core Systems
We overhauled every major system that was designed to support gacha mechanics and replaced them with more meaningful, gameplay-focused alternatives. This includes rethinking how rewards, character growth, and progression work across the game.
We're still brainstorming ways to repurpose legacy systems like banners, battle passes, and event menus into fun and evergreen content. More on that later.
🆕What’s New in *Three Skies Ascension*
🗺️Campaign Expansion and Difficulty
The original version of *Three Skies* featured just five areas. With *Ascension*, we’ve expanded the campaign to twelve unique regions, each with their own visual novel-style dialogue and story-driven content.
Considering that originally we were inspired by games like *Darkest Dungeon* for creating our dungeons, we also wanted to make sure that the gameplay felt challenging while also rewarding players for that challenge.
We now tie player progression to the main story, rather than allowing open-ended grinding, which would otherwise allow the player to trivialize the content by overleveling for every boss. However, there's still a great benefit to grinding content in each zone, as it allows you to earn rewards and prepare your heroes even further.
We also amped up the enemy encounters, bringing more diversity to the style of fights you face, with the intention of keeping players on their toes.
New encounter types include:
- Hero Encounters – Recruitable heroes through negotiation
- Handler Encounters – Enemy teams led by powerful AI heroes
- Elite Encounters - Enemies with higher stats and powerful perks
- Radiant (Shiny) Variants – Unique palette-swapped versions of heroes or creatures
☀️The Challenge System – *Order of the Sun*
Side dungeons are now repeatable and linked to a new challenge system overseen by the *Order of the Sun*. These challenges let you customize difficulty levels and reward you with currency to spend in a special shop.
You can exchange that currency for rare gear, additional recruit orders, powerful artifacts, and more. This system is designed to give skilled players more control and a clear path to mastering the game.
⚔️Combat and Skill System Overhaul
We’ve made some significant improvements to combat:
Swap Skills
Each hero can now assign one of their skills as a Swap Skill, which can be triggered from the backline to swap them into the fight. This opens up new tactical options and combo opportunities.
Using a swap skill does come with a tradeoff - it applies a 4-round cooldown to the skill used.
EX Skill System
The updated EX system now builds up to 10 charges through spending your hero's MP during a fight. These charges unlock Grimoire Abilities, powerful upgrades that can turn the tide of battle or save you in critical moments.
Skill Customization
We also revamped the skill upgrade system. Each hero skill can be improved by four ranks, and each rank offers multiple modifiers to choose from. This lets you personalize your playstyle and fine-tune your team.
🧰The Workshop
Previously, dungeon supplies could only be purchased beforehand and would convert to gold if unused. Now, with the new Workshop, you can craft upgraded items that stay in your inventory after each run.
The Workshop also allows you to create scrolls and fusion materials to support hero development and progression.
🎒Expeditions
The old real-time expedition system has been replaced with something more integrated. Now, expeditions are actual dungeon runs that your sideline heroes complete based on your own in-game progress.
Expedition time is reduced when your selected heroes have elemental advantages, which ties the system directly to your team-building strategy.
🛖Barracks Upgrades
The Barracks now supports 16 rooms by default, doubling the previous capacity without requiring upgrades. We also added sorting and filtering options based on player feedback to improve quality of life.
🌟Passive System
As you explore dungeons, you may come across encounters that grant or alter passive traits on your heroes. These passives can be beneficial or harmful, and vary in duration from temporary to semi-permanent, adding depth and unpredictability to dungeon crawling.
🛕Fusion Tower
The Fusion Tower replaces the old Arcane Library. Previously used for skill research, which now lives in the hero menu, the Fusion Tower now allows us to reimagine the building as a hero creation and alteration system.
With Fusion, you can combine two heroes or creatures to create a new one, using modifier items to influence the outcome.
With Alteration, you can directly change aspects of a hero, such as nature, talents, passives, and even visuals. It’s a robust system for players who enjoy refining their roster.
🐺Encounter Expansion
Encounters have been greatly expanded. Every zone now features thematic props and obstacles with different outcomes depending on your interaction choices. You can also now use any item from your inventory on encounters, often triggering special results.
The wildest example of this is our new Alchemy Table, which can take up to 15 different items to produce varying results for your team during a dungeon run.
📓Journal Expansion
The Journal has been overhauled to include not only heroes and creatures, but also celestials, artifacts, and scrolls. You can also now track your collection progress in one dedicated space.
Looking Ahead
As mentioned, some of the old systems, like event banners and battle passes, are currently on hold. We’re exploring ways to reinvent them as permanent features that enhance long-term play, rather than short-term grinds.
In the meantime, our focus is on:
- Quality of life improvements
- Endgame content
- Additional platform and localization support.
- Offline mode
Final Thoughts
*Three Skies Ascension* is no longer a gacha game with RPG elements. It’s a full Creature Collector RPG shaped by player choice, meaningful progression, and flexible systems.
We appreciate anyone who has followed us on this journey and welcome both new players and returning fans. The world of *Three Skies* has grown, and there’s still more to come.
Thanks for reading!
~Chris, Shiny Box Games