Following the demo launch in October, we have focused on the development of Campaign Mode. In this update, I’d like to show you the direction the game is taking regarding the campaign, as well as the ideas for updating and improving Skirmish Mode and Online Multiplayer.
In Campaign Mode, you will have access to different units that you must unlock as you complete missions. Upon completing missions, you will receive rewards based on your match statistics, such as completing the mission in the minimum number of turns, finishing all secondary objectives, or suffering minimum casualties. Some secondary objectives will be required to unlock certain units.
Each unit group will have a development tree where you can unlock upgrades and abilities. For example, some upgrades grant a percentage bonus to the group's stats depending on the units that form it. Other upgrades increase damage against humanoid units or creatures. Each group will have a different specialization. For instance, some will have upgrades and abilities for a more offensive melee playstyle, while others will have upgrades for ranged units. Other groups will follow a more supportive and/or defensive path. Each campaign mission will have objectives where certain groups will be more useful than others.
In the group summary, you will be able to view stats, as well as the upgrades applied to the group and their abilities. Additionally, in the campaign, we are introducing an experience point system that each group can earn by participating in missions. For example, capturing bases or engaging in combat against enemy groups will grant experience points to the group. Experience points will increase the group's Honorifics. We are currently designing the specific role the Honorifics will play in the game.
Here we show you one of the first missions of the campaign. In this mission, we only have two unit groups available, and the main objectives are relatively simple. For example, one objective is to capture the fort in the center of the map and free the prisoners (who will then join us). There are secondary objectives, such as investigating the rune in the north of the map, which is guarded by wild creatures. Initially, completing the secondary objectives will be practically impossible. The idea is to revisit these early missions once you have more groups and more upgrades/abilities, allowing you to complete them with all objectives met and earn a greater reward.
In general, the maps will be relatively open with various zones and secondary objectives, incentivizing exploration and strategic decision-making regarding which objectives to tackle first to complete the mission with the highest possible score.
Here is another early campaign mission. In this mission, you must defend the energy rift for several turns. Each turn, different enemy unit groups (Corx) will attempt to capture the rift. Furthermore, the presence of creatures—both wild and otherwise—will play an important role in most missions.
We hope you like the direction the game is taking for Campaign Mode. As we advance with the different missions, we are designing different gameplay modes for Skirmish Mode against the computer. In the demo, you were able to play Elimination Mode, where you deploy your unit groups on the map and your main objective is to eliminate the enemy groups. This is a simple match mode that can be very entertaining online against other players, but it hasn't quite worked as well when playing against the computer. One reason is the AI. While we can (and will) spend time improving how the computer plays to make it more competitive and less predictable, we can also design other game modes that are more objective-focused, similar to Campaign Mode, where the computer's role is completely different.
We believe the game is stronger and more entertaining with the exploration factor and diverse map objectives, so we will focus on creating a game mode that features these characteristics. As always, we will keep you informed of our progress in Campaign, Skirmish, and Online modes.
Thank you very much to everyone supporting us and taking an interest in the game; none of this would be possible without you!