Hello mates! The Baron here, bringing you some cool news from the Warpfrog front after a little hiatus.
The first thing I wanted to let everyone know is that Warpfrog are officially working on our next game!
It is way too early to do any kind of reveal, so we are going to keep this under our hats for now and keep cooking. Then in the future we can do a big reveal announcement or trailer, so that will be exciting. Oh and only because many will probably assume, I will nip it in the bud and tell you it is not Blade & Sorcery 2! ːtmntdonː
However, what I can reveal is that the new game will share a lot of DNA with Blade & Sorcery and you will probably find it "feels like a Warpfrog game". Similar to B&S, our next game will be VR, physics-based simulation, as anti-gamey as possible, and super modder-friendly. It is shaping up to be cool!
We are also going to be using our new and massively improved Thunder Road 2 game framework for developing this game, so it's a great opportunity for us to avoid the spaghetti code mistakes of Thunder Road 1; the largest obstacle that prevented us from doing any major expansions for Blade & Sorcery. ːsteamsadː
So, with the team buckled down to work on the new video game, that brings me to Blade & Sorcery.
It's been just over a year since 1.0 release and although there has been 7 post-1.0 patches, you will likely have heard me say many times how 1.0 was going to be our last content update... or was it? ːamadeus_happyː
If you have been a follower of the studio, you will know Warpfrog has a terrible condition called scopecreep-itis, where we literally cannot leave things alone or follow our own production plans, lol.
Therefore, I am here to announce the upcoming "Byeth Updates" for Blade & Sorcery!
What are the Byeth Updates?
Byeth is the name of the planet on which Blade & Sorcery takes place.
The Byeth Updates are going to be a series of 4 free content updates for PCVR and Nomad that expand upon the other nations of Byeth - Rakta, Sentara, Khar-Tib and Madlu - by bringing official canon weapons and armor from these nations into the game.
If you own the game you will receive these updates as free content when they are ready.
The first of the updates (The Rakta Update) will release later this year, likely towards the end of this year.
The Sentara Update, Khar-Tib Update and Madlu Update will follow next year, leading all the way up to the end of 2026.
[[i]New Rakta armour concept art]
We love, love, love Blade & Sorcery, the journey that brought us here, and the fanbase. As mentioned, it is really hard for us to step away, but Thunder Road has made it impossible to continue expanding significantly on Blade & Sorcery to the point that if we tried, you would end up with updates that were spaced a years apart and it would be unsustainable for the studio.
However, as we are now entering a heavy development period for our new video game, we know we would feel bad to leave Warpfrog fans waiting long for something new to look forward to from the studio.
We felt these content updates would be a feasible middle ground. Most of the Warpfrog team is working on the new title, but a small dedicated skeleton crew are staying behind to work on these B&S updates.
What to expect
Things the updates will definitely include will be new canon-lore weapons and armour, representative of the other nations of Byeth.
New gear will be purchasable in the Crystal Hunt shop and likely the shopkeeper will have a little lore to share in each update about how he came by them. You will also be able to freely access all the new gear in sandbox too of course.
To go with this, it is likely that each update will also include some kind of little feature, and by "little" feature I mean something that won't be likely to cause mega bugs or break the game. So this means no massive overhauls or complex mechanics.
[[i]Some untextured WIP weapon models for The Rakta Update]
The risks involved and what not to expect
Fans of Warpfrog will know, we explicitly try not to BS our players by over-promising for the sake of marketing and we actively try to underhype to temper expectations, so I wanna hit you guys with some information on what not to expect!
These updates need to have a spec-ops level of precision and demonstrate restraint in what we can and cannot add; as mentioned before about the complexities of Thunder Road 1, adding any type of change to the game is an absolute nightmare right now - everything is excruciatingly slow to work with, and when you add one thing and it breaks ten other random things, so we have to be super careful here. Adding something new is like placing a block on top of an already wobbling Jenga tower.
So with that said, what won't be included in the updates is anything feature heavy that could break the game. That means nothing like new dungeons, maps or major mechanics - the emphasis is going to be on weapons and armor type content.
The goal here is to desperately avoid creating any instability where Warpfrog devs start getting pulled off the new game development to go back and fix newly created Blade & Sorcery bugs, as well as avoiding adding anything so code heavy that it causes a mod-apocalypse and nukes all mods.
The Nations of Byeth
If you were a fan of the Crystal Hunt lore and collected the journal entries, you may already have an idea of what the other nations of Byeth are about.
But for those who don't know, here is a little overview of who is who, which may also give a little window into what you might expect thematically from each update:
Eraden
There is no "Eraden Update", but you can't talk about the nations of Byeth without mentioning Eraden since this is where the entirety of Blade & Sorcery takes place.
Eraden is the despotic monarchy that stretches along the coast of the western continent of Byeth, featuring an ecologically diverse landscape that ranges from lush green lands, to more arid areas (Canyon) and even snowy mountains (Sanctuary).
Aesthetically, Eraden was mainly inspired by medieval Western Europe; places like France, Ireland, etc, with a Celtic influence in the designs. However there was also inspiration from places like southern Spain.
Rakta
The landscape of Rakta is harsh and dangerous; craggy and mountainous, with swampy lowlands, creating a hardy people. It is a feudal empire, ruled by a crystal-obsessed Emperor. In Raike culture, crystal sorcery is idolized and a part of daily life.
Rakta is the greatest antagonists of Eraden; the Emperor's expansion into the northern agrarian lands of Eraden is driving the native Wildfolk south, creating strife with Eraden settlers. This is the backdrop to the Wildfolk faction in Crystal Hunt.
The aesthetics for Rakta are inspired by an amalgamation of East Asian cultures.
Sentara
Sentara is a compact merchant republic with a far reach due to their skilled mariners and traders.
Trade brokering between all nations of Byeth but getting entangled in the politics of none has allowed the Sentara to punch far above its weight class diplomatically, and generate great wealth through unrestricted trade.
Meanwhile, notorious pirate guilds flourish unchecked, filling in the market gaps through the distribution of illegal trade goods. This is the backdrop to the Outlaw faction in Crystal Hunt, as the Outlaws are seeking to secure and distribute crystal shards.
The aesthetics for Sentara are inspired by Mediterranean maritime cultures, but with a heavy pirate influence.
Fun fact: the shopkeeper from Crystal Hunt is Sentari!
Khar-Tib
Khar-Tib is not so much a single nation as it is dozens of micro-nations, each diverse in customs and laws, but symbolically held together by shared cultural ties.
A blistering desert land, the clans of Khar-Tib have been historically led by local strongmen, typically those with strong ancestral roots to the clan. But recent events in Khar-Tib have created a new, rapidly-rising power; word is spreading of a powerful warlord who has managed to unite and organize the disjointed clans under one banner, creating a new existential threat to Eraden's position of power in Byeth.
The aesthetics of Khar-Tib are inspired by Arabic cultures.
Madlu
Madlu is probably the closest living comparison to the Dalgarians; a culture that is highly magical, highly technological, and highly precautionary.
Following the crystal corruption of their homeland, the Madene spent many years as a migratory people. Eventually, Madene refugees would settle on the northern continent, where their knowledge of crystal technologies afforded them survival against the dangers on the frozen tundras.
Wishing to avoid a repeat of past mistakes, the Madene hold the crystal in great reverence, using it only out of necessity and as part of their technological survival. The use of personal crystal sorcery is strictly forbidden.
The aesthetics of Madlu are inspired by African and Inuit cultures.
The move to OpenXR and Unity 6
Coinciding with The Rakta Update but unrelated to the actual update itself, there is going to be a big technological change under the hood for Blade & Sorcery; the move to OpenXR and Unity 6. Though it is a big challenge for us, players won't actually notice it. However, it's still worth mentioning because it carries some mod risk.
Why this has to happen - Unlike a regular PC game development, VR has the extra complication of needing to support many different headsets which involves endless plugins - Steam OpenVR, Meta SDK, Pico SDK, HTC SDK, etc, etc.
Instead of supporting loads of different plugins, OpenXR standardizes everything. Manufacturers work with OpenXR so that the devs can get rid of all the individual plugins and just use OpenXR. ːpraisesunː
It's critical we do this because it is the only way we can stay on top of the snowballing maintenance support required for the endless number of headsets B&S plays on.
As for Unity 6, on top of receiving any new Unity bugfixes (at least you would hope... looking at you, Unity ːeagleangryː), OpenXR uses features from Unity 6, so it is compulsory for us.
So this probably all sounds good, but here are the complications for mods -
Moving to a new version of Unity means IL2CPP (aka scripting) will need to be updated. We will be working on this new scripting bridge, but you never know, there may be disruptions for scripting. Scripting is only relevant for Nomad, so this will only be relevant to Nomad players and not PCVR. Just mentioning it here because Nomad players read Steam news too.
Any mods that use input controls may be impacted by OpenXR and need an update. Not sure exactly what mods are out there that do this, but a mod that utilizes knuckles controllers would be an example.
Finally, Unity 6 will mean map mods will need updating - map modders would need to setup their navmesh with the NavMeshSurface component, configure, then rebake.
And that is it! Everything else should be okay for mod, so not too bad but I just wanted to mention it all in advance nonetheless.
That's all for now, folks!
Next you will hear from me is when The Rakta Update is more developed and I will be able to share some previews of the new content. I will likely have a better idea of when the update will drop around then too.
Cheers!