Hey everyone!It’s been awhile, so I thought I’d check in and give you a window into what’s going on around the studio. Even before we shipped Update 1.3 and the Flashpoint Expansion in November, the team has been pushing hard on a number of different fronts simultaneously. I call it “spinning plates” because it reminds me of an old circus act I saw as a kid:As you may have read in Jo's Dev Diary , localizing BATTLETECH for Update 1.4 was a challenging and complicated undertaking that required a lot of intense focus from many team members across multiple disciplines for many months. While that work was going on, and while we were still working on Flashpoint, our Design and Technical Art teams held a series of lunch meetings to collaborate on the technical direction for our Urban Warfare expansion later this summer.Nearly two full weeks of lunch meetings were required to give our artists the head start they needed to create new tools for the creation of city maps, a brand new pipeline for building destruction (which was required to support the scale of our new urban environments), and address a number of issues regarding the way that buildings affect unit movement. That was a huge change to our workflow but the process is now complete and in the iteration phase. The early results are very promising.Beyond all that, the moment we shipped Flashpoint, we jumped into a large series of short retrospective meetings to evaluate our performance and look for ways to do better. From there, we entered full pre-production for Update 1.6 and Urban Warfare. The pre-production process involves a lot of pushing and pulling, during which, I chart an overall direction and list of desired features and content while our producers prioritize the bugs we want to fix. Then they work with the team to figure out which features, content, and bugs will fit the time we’ve allowed ourselves. Although there’s a lot of negotiation and balancing involved in the process, it’s always a positive interaction - everyone just wants what’s best for the game and for the audience. As of a few weeks ago, we have a clear plan for the update and the expansion and we are currently on track even though #seattlesnowmageddon19 heavily impacted our productivity for a week.In addition to all that simultaneous development, last Fall we began a serious hiring effort to fill a number of positions in the studio. Because game development is such a collaborative experience, Harebrained Schemes takes hiring very seriously and we put a lot of effort into the process of adding the right people to the studio. Interviewing a bunch of people was a heavy plate to spin but the effort was worth it. We’ve added some amazing talent to the studio including several producers and a loooong-needed full-time IT Manager to keep the plates connected to the sticks (or keep the sticks from breaking. Or something. You get the idea.)Which brings me to Update 1.5. The plan is to ship 1.5 before our office move in mid-March, so that any technical issues we might encounter with the move don’t impact our ability to update the game. To that end, Update 1.5 is all about fixing bugs. Focusing on bugs has the added benefit of allowing the team more mental space for 1.6 & Urban Warfare pipeline, tools, and features. It also allows more time to execute, review, and iterate on our work. Now, those features... are a topic for a different day!Thanks for reading! I can’t wait to hop on a live-stream with you, take some questions, and talk about what we’re releasing this summer. I’m guessing that live-stream will be some time in April - and from our new office!Mitch