“That’s my father’s skull back there, isn’t it, wolf?” - Julius NeoMeirus, Tester Warrior Level 8



The new cave background shown here is coming along nicely, and I only used the wolf again so as not to ruin the surprise– there’s a bunch of new NPCs rolling off the line, as you’ll see in this latest packed Dev Update.

Last update, we highlighted gameplay and crafting updates, took a look at Edyrin’s cohort and warcaster friend Elle Manigold, shared info on our coming First-Time-User-Experience and took a look at how we’re going to try and quickly tell you story elements as you pass through this fantasy world we’re working on. This time, we’re focusing on the Narrative System in action, working tutorials, our visit with TouchArcade a GDC, the way we’re organizing visual tiers of gear and a whole mess of NPCs. Read on…



THE NARRATIVE SYSTEM

We’ve gone from concept to implementation on our narrative system since last time, and the features shared are going into the game. We’ll mix up the tells and formats a little, and for the most part present them the way you’ve seen in other games:

Above, you’ll be able to go back and skip out of this (if you don’t care about it) to get back to the action. However, for you narrative Lore Lords, you can scour through any of the longer expositions the way you would a text thread and search for hints, pokes and secrets and such before heading into the next bit of PVE or Event activity:

WORKING TUTORIALS

Don’t worry– the Exiles tutorials won’t be onerous (or else I imagine you’ll tell us that when testing begins). If you don’t plan to get in on the test, then you will have to rely on your fellow players to guide the Gunslingers toward a healthy balance of learning and freedom. That said, we’re excited about how it’s coming along– the classic pointers, help text and dimming of things you can’t do will speed you through the early experiences, but we’re trying to throw players in the deep end quickly. Time-to-freedom will be heavily scrutinized…

EXILES WITH TOUCHARCADE AT GDC

A few weeks ago, we headed out to GDC for our annual shenanigans with friends, developers, partners and press. We caught up with TouchArcade during the trip and did a demo of the latest Exiles build. Despite my awful strategic performance, you can see a ton of new content and action in their article and the session’s video posted soon afterward:

A VERY. LARGE. FIREBALL.



We show this guy often, because we dig him (and he will be blasting your face a lot). Here’s the latest VFX going into the Ethereal NPC:

GEAR TIERS

Several iterations of gear tiering and organization have led us to what we hope is a pretty succinct visual hierarchy of gear for your adventuring/gathering/fighting pleasure. As part of the MVP process we’re going through now, we’ve decided to formalize it a bit to show what kinds of details will merit including in any of the 4 visual tiers of loot (from the lowly, dinged up Tier 1 all the way to effects-laden super beautiful– and sometimes super ugly– Legendary).

With that guide comes a bunch of new weapons of various shapes and sizes as we fill in the blanks of missing gear (I’m partial to the wooden mallet though I doubt we’ll make it Legendary…)

FIGHTING ON THE BEACH



Locations within Embermark are rolling off the line, and we’re focusing right now on Wildewoods, the current starting Zone. It’s got a decent amount of coastline, so we’re getting some beachfront battling going (and no, you probably won’t encounter a Beach Wolf, this is just for creation purposes):

ENEMIES OF MANY SHADES AND NASTINESS



Last Update, I referred to this nasty flying fellow as the Not-A-Bat. And it’s not. But it has moved beyond the sketch you saw then into a fully articulated, vicious monster, with multiple attacks.

He’ll bite and buffet, but I’m really liking this claw attack and would want no part of it were I an exile (in Embermark):

Likewise, our Spider NPC got his animations rolling (we shared a video of his rig last time). Here, for your preview is his twitchy idle:

As well as his Spit attack (more on that later):

And here’s the early preview on the bulky Bear enemy, who will form the basis of quite a few of our four-legged monsters on the girthier side:

DON’T FORGET TO REMEMBER…



We’ll keep sharing details as we head toward testing (go here to sign up for testing and be among The First), and you can count on early impressions from the testers throughout our various channels.

If you haven’t already, follow along with Exiles development on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And if you haven’t, I’ll find you. And SMITE you.

CONNECT WITH OTHER EXILES

If you want to hear about the game, ask questions or connect with others who are helping the development team think about features, design and narrative, hop into the Discord Channel for live chat and say hi– it’s a friendly crew with plenty of daily/weekly/sometimes-planned shenanigans.

BONUS: A SSSSSERPENT

The art pipeline for Exiles has progressed to the point where we often concept enemy characters right in 3D and move into production, but sometimes we need to nail down a look, some character, some attitude. This serpent is a good example of that, and I really hope we can maintain this look as we move him into the game, because I want to slice his face off.