Darkest greetings Underlord,
On Friday we revealed the first Underlord to make their claim upon the spot as greatest Underlord in The Under Games. Today we’re going to delve into the other half of the upcoming release with a focus on some of Patch 2.0’s features!
What goodies can we coax out of the Cultists today? Let us delve right in!
Sanguine Terrain Theme & Blood Chasms
First up we have the brand new Sanguine terrain theme! This meaty coating redefines what it means to poke through the depths, turning your pickaxe into a scalpel, and dungeon management into an autopsy!
Are you ready to slice and dice?
I hope your constitution can take it Underlord, because when combined with the new Blood Chasms, it can make for a redder than red sanguine nightmare. Don’t go fainting on us now..
It’s a bloodbath, sorry
And of course this new terrain theme will be available for use in the new Map Editor, alongside the whiter than white Snowy theme you became familiar with in My Pet Dungeon.
Campaign Remaster
Over the years we’ve expanded War for the Overworld well beyond our initial concepts and beyond what we could ever have dreamed possible. With the wealth of new content, features and improvements since 2015, and with 2.0 looking to be the final major patch, we thought now would be a great time to look back at the Main Campaign and give it a spitshine. But what exactly does that mean? Read on!
Firstly, using the new terrain theming we can now vary the environments across the original campaign. So when for example you travel through the Shifting Bond portal, expect to see the new Sanguine theme; this fittingly turns Rhaskos’ realm into the bloodbath it was always meant to be.
Meanwhile, if you’re preparing your ambush for the none-too-clever dwarves in Belmorne’s Pass, then make sure you pack some sweaters for your minions, because it’s suddenly got quite cold in the mountains.
That’s not all that we’ve tweaked in the campaign however: There are a number of gameplay and tutorialisation improvements in the earlier levels, as well as a completely rebuilt Level 12. with Draven, Kasita and Korvek all making appearances in The Under Games, we felt it was high time their level got a few layout changes.
We’ve also introduced a slew of new cutscenes throughout the campaign, to improve the areas where we felt the storytelling was missing something. We feel these new cinematics help tell the story we originally set out to, but in a way we couldn’t have possibly done way back then; especially where the ending is concerned, we hope you now get more clarity and resolution.
There’s a number of smaller changes as well, including more than a few balance adjustments. We hope that together all these updates make the campaign feel like a much more refined experience.
AI Update
Oh yes, this one has been a long time coming! One of the few things we revealed about Patch 2.0 a very long time ago was the fact that we were working on improvements to the Skirmish AI, which drives how your rival Underlords behave.
We’ve been wanting to do this for quite some time, as our original AI was developed during the rushed months leading up to release. Though it has received some improvements over the years, its available strategies were still limited – and more crucially it had an all too shallow understanding of the Aspects in the Veins of Evil.
Bombards and how to place them – a concept which confused the old AI, now realised by the new!
For 2.0 we’ve gone the whole hog! Rather than taking what already exists and improving on it, we’ve instead taken the lessons learned and built a whole new AI from the ground up. Trained on the tactics used by our most seasoned community members, experienced in the ways of placing Bombards, and fed on a steady stream of fears, tears and nightmares, this new AI really does put the “Fright” in “Steven Fright”!
The AI is capable of analysing situations within its vision, making tactical decisions, and determining an appropriate course of action. If it identifies potential chokepoints it may decide to fortify them, or it may choose to pursue objectives which are least-defended by enemy forces.
The AI makes its decisions based on many variables – here’s a visualisation of its brain!
As always the AI comes in many different flavours, with the original five difficulty levels returning as realised levels of intelligence. Alongside these we have new personality sets, which showcase distinctly different playstyles, and which are paired with individual Underlords. This means that Underlords will behave befitting of their personalities, in both The Under Games, and within Skirmish and Multiplayer.
Steven Fright meanwhile has retired to sunnier pastures, a little too intimidated it seems by the recent advances in AI. But eagle-eyed Underlords may yet spot his handsome face within The Under Games:
The handsome face of Evil, who bears an uncanny resemblance to our AI developer, Stefan Furcht…
This about wraps us up on this feature preview, but rest assured that the biggest is yet to come (a little thing called the Map Editor). But first, on Friday we’ll be diving into yet another of the new Underlords: the mechanical mastermind that is Volta!
Cheers,
– Brightrock Games Team
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