What The Teams Are Working On 07-06-17

Hope you enjoyed all the WARHAMMER II details from the press and Youtubers last week. As you can imagine, E3 is nearly upon us and we will have some big reveals and game footage arriving, so stay tuned to our social media and forums where Grace and myself will be sharing all the news as it turns up.

While we are naturally very excited for our fantasy Total War title coming up, we now have 3 historical projects in full production, so the next few months should be pretty interesting for strategy fans of all tastes.

So as we get warmed up for E3, we thought it would be good to share a little about what the teams are working on in the meantime.
Let’s take a look…

ARENA TEAM

Alpha testing continues, and if you have been getting involved on the test weekends you’ll have seen some interesting developments. Not least of which the new and fiercely contested Hadrian’s Wall map, which debuted a couple of weeks ago.

E3 will also be a big event for ARENA, so check us out on the show floor to go hands on with the latest build and tune into the official Facebook page for more info as it arrives.

NEW CONTENT TEAM

The ‘Old Friend’ will indeed be our next content drop for WARHAMMER, it’s tied to an event later in the summer. I know there’s some excitement, but it’s just a small thing that we wanted to do. Think along the lines of the Blood Knight Free-LC, rather than lords or anything. Not saying it’s a unit specifically, but that sort of scale addition to the game. The event gave us the chance to do something, so we took it.

Having said that, I can say it won’t be the last addition to WARHAMMER. As mentioned in the previous blog a few months ago, we’d been thinking about what sort of content could be added to the first game, and what that might be. We’ve hit on something we think is a pretty good opportunity to add some more content to the game, so there will be a new Race Pack  released later in the year, before WARHAMMER II is released.

No, it’s not Kislev (sorry!), but the New Content team have got some rather unique gameplay mechanics for this new Race, and it will come with a small update to the main game and a Free-LC drop. This particular Free-LC will benefit not only main game owners, but also DLC owners too this time.

Otherwise, the New Content team are in the early concept and design stages for the first WARHAMMER II DLC out post-launch.

WARHAMMER II TEAM

We were really pleased that everyone who came to see the game recently enjoyed their time with our E3 Demo. This is the build that we’re taking to E3 next week in Los Angeles and features a flyover of some of the new campaign map and then a hands-on battle to get to grips with. If you are making your way to the expo centre we’d love to say hi, stop by at our Lizardmen-inspired temple stand in the West Hall, stand 4300.

Back in the studio, the game is really starting to come together and the last few months have seen more and more play tests being run as the new features get implemented. We’re now in a position where full play-throughs are possible and that’s helping the team focus on the individuality of the new playable races and the way in which they wrestle for control of the Vortex. The fluid way this can unfold to a huge variety of possible outcomes in the grand campaign is providing for some dramatic war stories by the coffee machine already.

HISTORICAL NEW CONTENT TEAM

The most recent project team to kick into full production is now working on a particularly large Campaign Pack DLC for one of our more recent historical releases. It’s an expansion we’ve been wanting to do for a while now, so very happy that we’ve been able to get it into the schedule for later in the year.

At the moment, this team is building art content and working on the update for the main game needed to accommodate the new expansion. We will certainly be sharing more details when we can.

HISTORICAL TEAM

Development on the next major historical release continues apace, with the team focusing on some fantastic UI and environmental work recently to capture the mood of this unique setting, that we’ve yet to explore in any previous Total War game.

Other areas that are progressing nicely are the important character relations that occur between the major personalities in the game. Now the designers can start modelling the various interactions and gameplay impacts the proposed features will have. Elsewhere, the campaign map is starting to come together in some new and visually exciting ways. Obviously, it will help set the tone and immersion for the whole game, and the artists have done an incredible job in realising the style we’re going for.

HISTORICAL FLASHPOINT TEAM

We’re pleased to say that our plans for a new stand-alone title have come to fruition, and this team are now in full production on an exciting new release. We are planning to set this in an era we have already visited, but will cover a particular period we are very fond of and haven’t done enough justice to yet.

We’ve been thinking a lot about how our major releases cover eras, our character-based follow-ups span the events of iconic lives (like Napoleon, or Attila), but that we are also interested in flashpoint moments. Those shorter, intense periods where events could have unfolded in any direction, dramatically changing the course of history in only a handful of months or years.

‘Fall of the Samurai’ being based on the Boshin War is a great example of this, and we are planning this new title to be similar in intent. It will also arrive before the next major historical title that the team above are working on.