Hello everyone !

The last year has been significantly important for the development and the evolution of Wolcen. From version 0.3.5 to 0.5.0.4a we released a dozen patches and pushes at least as many hotfixes. 2017 was about giving our players substance to start enjoying the content of the game and the core features of Wolcen and we worked hard to update the game twice every month.

2017 also was the one-year-anniversary of the Early Access of Wolcen:

And our first trailer !

Finally, 2017 was the year we also learned and grew.
Although we originally planned to release the game much faster, our ambition for Wolcen increased and we’re now moving forward with the idea of making an even Greater game. With a big G. We know that this will cause some delays, but in the end we want you to feel it was definitely worth waiting.

But for now, let’s go back a little bit on this 2017 year and remind what happened, before we move on to 2018’s plan.

Scenario
2017 saw the introduction of the universe of Wolcen with a new world map and new quests presenting the first area of the game and some elements of the lore. We didn’t add anything more so far to use this testing ground for the core features of the game. We had to choose between the lore content and the core features and since we want players to enjoy the gameplay and experiment different game styles, it felt more important to focus on the implementation of the core features of the game.

Gameplay
Focusing on the Gameplay allowed us to implement lots of new features, even some we didn’t originally planned for 2017 :

And last but not least, we made tons of balancing. That’s it for the major stuff on the Gameplay for 2017.

Localization
Thanks to our great Community, we were able to add and improve localization of the game for :

Wolcen is proudly expanding in the world today thanks to all your support and effort. We’re really really grateful about that.

Audio
The audio has also been improved. We added a lot of new sounds from inventory to PST to quest or enemies and some new musics as well. The game now has its theme, as well as some areas in the game. We didn’t implement as much music as we wanted but focused on the sounds to make the gameplay enjoyable.

Environments
2017 saw the growth of the team to improve the workflow, speed and quality. The whole world was updated with the 0.5.0, with a lot of new areas, assets, dungeons and more. It seems that everyone was happy with this update, but let me reassure you, a lot more is coming. To give you a brief overview of what have been done:

We added new areas:

We also improved the existing ones. With a new world and many improvements in our workflow, 2017 leads the path to a greater 2018 year.

Concept art
Regarding the art concept work, 2017 was about exploring and testing new designs for the foes and factions, a lot of time refining the UI and design the UI for the new features. There also was a lot of efforts made to improve the workflow for future productions such as environments, characters, weapons and mods. Alexandre did an amazing work and agreed to show some exclusive artwork made this past year.

Of course, there is not a single improvement we add without the implication of the animation team. All the various postures, the way your pistols make you look that cool, the characters and enemies movements, the specificities linked to your character looks, all goes through them and their hard work.

We’re putting a lot of hopes in 2018 and made the proper arrangement to make these hopes come true. We are still in the process of planning the additions to the game and calculating the time and efforts needed to achieve our goals, but we plan to sweat a great deal this year. And not only because we’re on the French Riviera.

Updates status
With the team growing and the development reaching a critical point for the future of the game, we plan to apply updates every 2-3 months with major and quality content addition. The pace we had didn’t allow us to optimize the game and reduce significantly the amount of crashes as well as making the proper testing. We want to provide more quality to Wolcen, we heard the need for more optimization, content, and less crashes despite the Alpha status of the game and we want to improve on that. This will lead the next patch to be pushed in March.

Linux version status
Wolcen has proven to be a very challenging game to make and maintain, and we’re all highly motivated to lead it to its release and even more. Despite that passion, we’re facing the real problem of time required by all the corrections and additions we must make to make this game great. Knowing that, having a second version of the game for created content as well as maintenance would present a very high difficulty with our current staff, specially without penalizing the Windows version itself. As much as we would like to provide the Alpha and Beta version to Linux users, we must face the fact that this will be more time consuming than productive for the game. Therefore we have decided that the Alpha and Beta version will not be implemented on Linux.

Scenario
The last month was very productive and we anchored the core elements of the 5 acts storyline.
Regarding the way we’re going to tell the story, we want to innovate on the narrative style, and we hope that you will enjoy what we plan.
We will also use the social networks to introduce the main characters, villains, and areas, without spoiling too much of course ! Wolcen Studio now has a hero fully dedicated to that side of the development and we’re confident things will move forward much faster thanks to him.

Gameplay
There will be a lot of improvements in the Gameplay as well. Here is a non-exhaustive list of what we plan for this year:

We will also internally work on the future content of the game’s scenario but so far we don’t plan to release it for the Alpha or the Beta to provide a testing environment for spoiler sensitive players.

Animation & FX
Addition to the team will allow us to improve the animations, characters and FX in the game to make it even more epic and enjoyable. We want to keep the same visual quality for Wolcen and even improve it if we can. We also plan to work on the player’s characters, both male and female, to improve their looks and behaviors, as well as providing cool options to personalize your experience of the game.

Environment
With the development of the scenario, we plan to create a lot of new environments that will support the story of the game and allow players to explore the world of Wolcen, including new areas for the Republic faction and new corrupted zones, as well as other new areas we prefer to keep silent at the moment to avoid spoiling.

Audio
We plan to add voices in the game to improve the game experience and the immersion. They will not be implemented until we’ve finalized the content, but they are planned. New musics are also in the pipes.

In conclusion
The 2018 calendar for Wolcen is very fraught with content. We will continue to focus on the gameplay content more than the scenario release. The gameplay elements need much more testing than the story, and we don’t want players to refrain from testing because they’re worried of being spoiled.
We will then focus on the endgame content to allow player to have fun while testing the game and its features.
Patches applied less often will allow us to add more content in a more stable environment so our Community can enjoy the game while testing it.
Don’t forget your feedbacks will always help us to make the game even better so do not hesitate to provide them to us, it’s really important for us to know how you feel when you play Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem.

Once more, thank you all for your support. This means a LOT to all of us.

Useful links :

Wolcen’s Roadmap
Wolcen’s Bug tracker
Wolcen’s Official Website
Wolcen’s Official Facebook Page
Wolcen’s Twitter page
Wolcen’s Instagram Page
Wolcen’s Official Discord server
Wolcen’s FAQ
Help us fix crashes here

Community websites:

German Fan Site : wolcen-game.de
French Fan Site : Wolcen France