Hello Team!
Well here we are, getting a suntan from our computer monitors in a windowless room, right in the middle of the Steam Summer Sale. We have some huge news coming later this week about the next big content update. Flashy gifs should be expected! Until then, we’d like to cover a few changes coming to the core of RWBY:Grimm Eclipse.
Persistent Characters
In the early days of RWBY-GE, we were aiming for more replayability via a MOBA-like leveling system. Meaning, each time you played, you could spec your character differently. Well, after a lot of community feedback and playtesting, we’re moving to persistent characters.
What does that mean? Great question! Now, all progress done on a character is saved from play session to session. Play for a few chapters as Weiss, unlock a handful of abilities, come back a week later, and your huntress’s progress is right where you left it.
For those of you that like a little extra challenge, we’re adding Hunter Ranks. These ranks are meant to give players long term goals through various sets of challenges. For example, once you complete the challenge of fully leveling the four main characters, you can opt to rank up. Ranking up will reset the progress of all your characters, but also grant you access to a new set of challenges. Challenges will vary from rank to rank. Each new rank you achieve will be accompanied by a special gem icon that displays next to your name in game. We can’t wait to see people showing off their hard work via these Hunter Rank gems.
New User Interface
As you can see from the image above, we’ve got a hot new UI coming. We want to hold off a bit before showing it off in all its glory. Rest assured, the new UI is colorful, helpful, and full of RWBY flavor.
Horde Mode
Your main menus have said “Horde Mode - Coming Soon!” for a long time now. It should say “Coming Eventually.’ Our priority is the core game for now. After that, we’ll move on to a few extra goodies, including Horde Mode. That said, this mode will come out after our full launch. Good news, Horde Mode will be a free update to all players.
Combat Polish
These past few months have seen a lot of subtle and not so subtle changes to combat. Most recently, we’ve been polishing animations and FX. Faster team attacks, less landing lag between some moves, and several brand new moves. Each playtest feels better and better, and we think you're going to like it.
Achievements
Several of you internet sleuths noticed that we've been testing achievements. Good eye! It seems like the feline faunus is out of the bag. We'll have a slew of challenges for you all to tackle when the game launches. There may be a fair amount of puns in there. Fair warning.
More Performance Fixes
Thanks to loads of your bug reports and game support emails, we’ve tracked down a few big issues. These issues have been causing a lot of players problems. The next update should allow the game to run smoother than ever before. More in the next update.
Performance Issue Reporting
As usual, we need details when you report bugs. Head over to this post if you have issues. Please be detailed.
Post bugs here!
RTX Weekend
We’ll announce more in the next news post, but if you’re coming to RTX, sound off in the comments. The excitement levels are building to insane levels! We can’t wait to see the community play unreleased, never before seen content at RTX…. um, I mean… perhaps I’ve said too much.
Wanna reach us directly?
We’re a busy bunch, but we all love taking a little time to chat with the community. Say hey!
Name: Position: Steam Name or @Twitter
Michael: Game Director: @MPHadwin
Casey: Senior Engineer: @CaseyDonnellan
Abe: Senior Designer: @RobertsonAbe
Andy M: Senior Producer: Wizard_Poop (on Steam)
Jeff: Game Engineer: @jc_chamberlain
Will: Game Engineer: @WixelPix
Andy C: Artist/Level Designer: @MaximumCortez
Jordan: Animator/VFX: @Jordy_J_S
Brian: Associate Producer:@Skilltacular
Happy Hunting,
Rooster Teeth Games