I have some good news, and some good news. Which would you like to hear first?

“The good news, Zack! The good news!” you cry out, oblivious to the joke.

Alright. The good news is that the concept of Otherworldly Sigils didn’t really work out the way I wanted them to. They’re an interesting idea, and something I might revisit in future games, but they just don’t work very well in Siralim 3. There are countless reasons for this cancelation, but here’s the biggest one: they made me, as a player, feel conflicted – on one hand, I’m supposed to be handing out these Sigils to other people to help them find rare items or creatures. On the other hand, those same people are going to fight my team of creatures, and I need to make sure they die so that I can get rewarded. I could remove one of these two elements so we’re left without this conflict, but then the entire system feels really dull.

So why is this good news? Because we don’t want bad features in Siralim 3, right? We want to remove the bad and replace it with good. Hence, Tavern Brawls.

The Tavern in Siralims 1 and 2 was always pretty much useless. It housed the gambling dwarves and had a few NPCs to talk with for some roleplaying flavor, but outside of that, there wasn’t much going on. Thanks to Tavern Brawls, you might find yourself spending more of your time there than ever before.

So, first things first: you’ll need to unlock the Tavern. You’ll do this fairly early on in the game since it’s part of a story quest. After that, you’ll be able to complete in Tavern Brawls!

Each day, when you enter your Tavern, you’ll see 5 different NPCs that are modeled after other players who are also competing in these brawls. For example, one day, you might see Zack (a white cat, obviously) the Drunk (my carefully-chosen title that I unlocked earlier on in the game) with his team of Singular Diabolic Horde enjoying a beer or five with his favorite bar wench. You can challenge him to a fight.

In Tavern Brawl fights, your creatures will be scaled to level 100, as will their artifacts. Your perks, runes, cards, talismans, and other fluff is ignored for these fights – fair is fair, after all. Similarly, your opponents will all be level 100 as well. The goal here is to make these fights require careful thought and strategy, rather than allowing you to out-level or overpower this content entirely.

After you defeat all the brawlers for the day, you’ll earn some Bar Vouchers which can be exchanged for exclusive Spell Gems, among other prizes. These spells all interact with a brand new debuff: “Drunk”. I won’t reveal what this debuff does, but I’ll leave you with the names of two of these spells: Tartarith’s Bangin’ Bourbon and Yseros’ Godly Gin. I expect that players will be able to build entire teams that center around this new “Drunk” debuff.

In addition to winning some Bar Vouchers, your team will also be added to the pool of possible enemy encounters for future brawls. Similarly, after a certain period of time, old challengers will be removed from the pool in order to keep things feeling fresh. That way, players will always be trying to come up with new strategies to make these brawls more challenging for other players. If your team manages to beat all the enemies with ease on Day 1, they won’t necessarily have the same luck on Day 2. You’ll probably need to create several different teams in order to counter what other players throw at you.

Everyone will face the same challengers each day, so if you’re having trouble against a certain opponent, my hope is that you’ll strategize with your fellow players on Discord, our forums, social media, etc. It’s a tavern, after all, so what could a little social interaction hurt?

One other small feature I’m considering is allowing you to write your own line of dialogue that players will see when they challenge you. I’m hesitant to do that, though, because I know there’s going to be that one guy who links to a porn site or something stupid like that. I’ll see what I can do, though.

I was planning to announce this stuff on April 1, but yeah… no one would have believed me. Not even close. Either way, this feature won’t make it into the game before it is released for Early Access, but I wanted to announce this early on so you can all adjust your expectations accordingly.

So, what do you think? Are you excited for Tavern Brawls?