Greetings Wielders,
For years, the most requested feature has been the introduction of more factions! And we get you, we really do. The trouble is that developing new factions is both very costly and time-consuming. So we intended to offset the slow pace of faction releases with smaller DLCs that could include things like new Wielders or mini-campaigns.
We recently asked you for feedback regarding the Rise Eternal DLC and its price point. Surprisingly, most were willing to pay more than we had thought. It was of course encouraging, but at the same time we saw many comments about “what I really want is more factions!”. That gave us a lot to think about!
Over 10,000 people replied to the Rise Eternal pricing poll, thank you for that! (By the way: There’s a Swedish word in the image above, can you find it?)
Originally, our plan was to release Bleak East next spring, a grand expansion featuring two new factions and a sweeping campaign exploring their role in Aerbor’s story. However, as development progressed, and the addition of Rise Eternal took some of our well-needed focus, we realized that the timeline wouldn’t be realistic. We faced the tough decision of whether to delay or pivot.
We chose to listen to you.
Rather than making you wait for new factions, we’ve postponed the release of Rise Eternal and split Bleak East up into two separate DLCs. This means you will get the first faction released earlier than we had planned for! This winter, you’ll be getting Vanir, our first DLC. It means you won’t have to wait long to experience brand-new units, fresh Wielders, and beautifully harsh winter biomes. Inspired by Viking and Scandinavian folklore, the Vanir raiders will bring some interesting new twists to Songs of Conquest!
Click the image above to enhance it!
But the speed of development comes with a trade-off. We had originally envisioned Vanir to be presented in a combined campaign with the Roots. But we have chosen to step down from that ambition and focus on providing new gameplay features and conquest maps. Campaigns are incredibly time-consuming to create for our small studio, and they demand considerable resources—particularly when it comes to level design, cut scenes, writing dialogue (and translating all that dialogue to 13 languages!), rigorous playtesting, and setting the difficulty levels just right. It’s not a decision we took lightly, but we believe this is the best way to continue delivering quality content for you at the pace we think you’ll prefer!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3260210/Songs_of_Conquest__Vanir/
Now, on to the exciting part! We’re thrilled because this shift in development priorities lets us focus on what you’ve been asking for—new factions, new units, and new gameplay—at a faster pace.
So, who exactly are the Vanir? What will this DLC include? It won't include a campaign but, it will have everything that our normal factions have: 8 Unique units, each with their own upgrade. Complete settlements with buildings, research, and tactical choices. A new biome with its own style and blockers that come with it, all designed to be able to merge it with what is already there in the map editor, just like with our “old” ones.
As a Swedish development team, we can appreciate this homage to our mild summers.
A lot of the artwork is done already and we are deep into working on abilities and all those little things that make a faction unique. Like all the VFX that comes with a unit that can turn into a flock of birds and attack you from across the battlefield!
Winter can’t come soon enough and we hope you share our excitement and enthusiasm. In the coming months, we will share blog posts, telling you how the work is progressing.
If you want to be among the first to beta test Vanir, or win an key for the DLC, sign up for our newsletter right here! You’ll also get access to some exclusive giveaways that are only available for email subscribers!
Click here to subscribe to our newsletter!
As always, we’ll try our best to keep a transparent and respectful dialogue going between us as developers and you, our players. We know some will miss the addition of new campaigns, but we intend to offset that with lots of new maps and fun gameplay additions. We are also not ruling out the possibility of creating a final mega campaign when we reach the end goal of eight factions released!
/Team Lavapotion