https://youtu.be/kH_DBnb4wyU
Hi everyone !
Today is a special day for us, as it marks the one-year anniversary of Wolcen’s Early Access launch.
To celebrate, we’ll take a look back at the origins of Wolcen, up to all the content that has been added to this point. We’ll then take a peek at the future of the game.
But first, let’s take a trip down memory lane.
In the beginning
Wolcen, or Umbra as it was known at that time, started as a mod for the original Crysis, that gave users the tools to develop RPGs on CryEngine. Our CEO Daniel Dolui work for years on this project, with the goal of creating something reminiscent of the look and feel of Diablo 2, but made with modern technology. You can still find videos of this project on youtube, like this one or this one.
As time went on, more people shared Daniel’s vision and joined the project, allowing the first working prototype see the light of day.
2 years after, with a team of 4, a second prototype was ready to be presented at GDC 2015. It already featured many skills, armors pieces, impressive particle effects and a randomly generated dungeon.
The prototype caught the attention of hack and slash enthusiasts, and word spread of a next-gen, class-free hack and slash being developed.
The very small team realized that fully realizing their vision would require expanding the scope of the project in a significant way.
In may 2015, the Kickstarter campaign was launched and was a huge success, as we received almost twice the amount of funds. More than 11000 people gave us their trust, even though we weren’t big names, so the four of us left our bedroom to create our game studio and our licence. Wolcen studio was born.
In march 2016, Wolcen was launched into Early Access, allowing us to build upon our relationship with the community.
What has been accomplished
Since the Early Access launch and up to this point, most of the game’s systems and UI elements have been refactored and overhauled to build a better game.
Key gameplay features have been added, like the Passive Skill Tree, Resource Opposition System, housing, dodge-rolling, new enemies, weapon-combos, player storage, character customization and more.
This year alone, our programmers added 3 590 962 lines of code to the game, and more than 1500 lines of changelog have been published by our now eleven-man team.
What’s next
Update 0.4 will include a new main menu and the Active Skill Tree system, allowing players to customize the way their spells work.
With online storage of characters also comes the daily dungeon, with leaderboards.
You can find more informations about these features in our latest devblog
The future
So, what can you expect in the coming year ?
With a large part of the major gameplay features implemented, work on both single and multiplayer content is continuing at increased speeds. New gameplay features will still come regularly, as well as new monsters and their associated behaviors.
Apocalyptic Forms are coming soon, and work on the dungeon challenge mode is advancing at a rapid pace.
But that’s not all; here’s a list of the feature that are coming to wolcen :
- Crafting
- Multiplayer Co-op
- Arena mode
- A brand new quest system with a new UI, with the first act of the game and introduce in-game cinematics
- Minions / Companions
- New sections of the Passive Skill Tree
- New skills in the Active Skill Tree
- Tons of new monsters, bosses and AI behaviors
- New weapons, armors and items
- Linux support
- Hardcore mode
- Gamepad support
- Steam achievements
- A new musical score
More importantly, we have been working on a completely revamped open world and its quest line for months. This new game world will come in the 0.5 update, and will be your first taste Wolcen’s single-player campaign.
There is a new world out there, and we can’t wait for you to explore it !
Thank you so much for your support ! We are confident 2017 will be a fantastic year for Wolcen, and you’ll have as much fun playing it as we have developing it !
Cheers!
Wolcen Studio