Greetings, fellow Wizards! Today is finally the day. After a long stretch of intense development followed by a month of hands-on testing with players, we’re finally ready to officially launch our Citadel Reignited update! If you’ve been following along, you’ll no doubt be aware that this is by far the most significant update we’ve released since our Early Access launch. We’ve added a ton of new gameplay features, while adding a significant amount of polish to take the game’s balance and presentation to the next level.
One quick note: Make sure you return your game to the main branch of the game to ensure you are fully up to date. Right click Citadel in your Steam library, click “Properties" and open the “Betas” tab. From there, you should select “NONEt” from the dropdown field.
To really give you guys an idea of just how enormous this update is, let’s take a look at all the new gameplay features and content we’re injecting into Ignus:
Spellcrafting
One of the most ambitious new additions we’ve included in the Reignited update is a complete and total overhaul of our entire spell system. In the previous version of the game, spells were treated like any other unlockable recipe. You’d use knowledge points to unlock them, and that’s it.
We decided that Citadel is at its core a game about experimentation and creativity, and that we should extend that into our spells. With our new Spellcrafting system, players can use powerful Essences found around the world to craft a large variety of spells. These spells can then have their attributes be further modified and customized, allowing an even greater degree of variety in spellcasting.
To learn more about Spellcrafting, take a look at this much more in-depth post.
Farming
Since our Early Access launch roughly one year ago, we’ve heard many, many requests from players for the addition of Farming. After months of work and refinement, we’re pleased to say that Farming is now ready to enter the world of Ignus with the Citadel Reignited update!
Now that the update is live, you will be able to use your precious Knowledge Points to buy Farming Plots and Sprinklers. Farming Plots, as you might imagine, house the actual plants you wish to grow. By placing any of the world’s plants into a Deconstructor, you can acquire seeds to fill your plots. Once you’ve planted your seeds, erect a Sprinkler nearby and have it spread the water and fertilizer your plants will need to grow big and strong.
For more info, take a peek at this post we shared with a greater amount of detail about Farming!
Enhanced Character Customization
Even louder than the calls for Farming were the requests for a wider selection of character customization options. Many players, particularly those of the RP community, expressed disappointment at the limited degree of cosmetic options available when creating a character. This is feedback we wholeheartedly agreed with, and took it upon ourselves to improve the situation with Citadel Reignited.
With this update, you will have full control over the shape and size of various parts of your character’s body via a range of new slider-options. From head size and neck length, to the proportions of your arms, legs, chest and torso, you will be able to tweak your character with a brand new level of detail. Want to make a scrawny, short goblin? Or perhaps a hulking, muscle-bound giant? Anything is possible with the flexibility of our new character creation!
Check out this post from a little while ago for even more details about Character Customization!
Raiding Improvements
Tackling raid balance has been an on-going priority for us at Blue Isle Studios, and we’ve made some significant improvements with this update to get the state of raiding to a much less griefable place. We believe that raiding another player should take some time and effort to accomplish, and that it should not be so easy that a player can quickly an entire server’s worth of bases.
To that end, we’ve made the crafting and acquisition of raiding materials a much more laborious process. We’ve also reduced the number of charges you get with Siege spells once you’ve acquired them. With these changes, players who wish to target and raid another player may do so with some effort, but they will not be able to attack and destroy multiple other players in the process.
We’ve also implemented a selection of new notifications and alerts to provide greater transparency to players who have been raided or are in the process of being raided. When another player attacks your base, you will receive a pop up alerting you to the siege. This pop up will also tell you the name of your attacker, allowing you the opportunity to retaliate. Additionally, any time there is a raid in progress it will be made visible to all other players on the server via a notification on the map screen.
To learn more about these big changes, and how they will improve your raid experience, click here.
Cooking
To make the world feel more alive, we've also added a new cooking system to the game. You can now forage for plants and hunt wild game, and use their spoils to create a variety of new cooked meals. These meals will not only replenish your mana and health, but will also often apply powerful buffs, providing you with the upper hand in combat.
Visual and User Interface Overhaul
We’ve also taken this momentous opportunity to reevaluate the quality of Citadel’s presentation and make changes where we can to make the game as clean and slick as possible.
To start, we’ve given an extremely thorough upgrade to every menu in our game. From the tame list, to the server browser to even the Knowledge Tree, everything has been made simpler, cleaner and significantly more attractive! On top of that, we’ve also given a big overhaul to the general appearance of the game’s world. We’ve improved the quality of our lighting, and have added a ton more vibrancy to the game’s colour pallet.
Much More!
This update is so loaded with tweaks and changes that it's practically an entirely new experience. Hop on in now, and please continue to share your feedback! It has been a huge help in setting all these new systems and features up, and we truly value it.
If you haven't played in a while there's also a ton more new content that has been added since our Early Access launch, including:
- Three large, cooperative Boss Dungeons
- Over 40 new weapons, armors and trinkets
- More than 10 new monsters and enemies
- An entirely new set of Marble construction pieces
- A selection of new furniture and other decorative building pieces
- Trap doors and spike pits
- Upgradeable attack and defense structures
- Structure material swapping
- Broomstick League
- Quests
- Time Limited world events