Hello!

It’s been a little while since the last informal dev letter, so it’s time to do a little catch-up.

Our last update added revamped, and in some cases completely redone, faction missions as well as an additional mission in South Africa. The faction missions utilize a new scaling tech aimed at our more endgame players (defined as those with gear above Elite 3), and that appears to have been a hit! We will be using this tech as much as possible in future content. It’s also been fantastic reading the various theories to come out of the missions added to South Africa.

We’ve been working very hard on the next release, and it’s coming together nicely. So what is it? Well…

As many of our long-time players will attest, when scenarios first launched prior to the relaunch hints were made at possible additional scenario types. We decided that it was high time to add a new scenario type, complete with different mechanics and an overall different feel. To that end we have been working hard on creating the new “Occult Defence” scenario type!

We looked at player feedback from the Seek & Preserve scenarios: what was liked and what was disliked. From there we designed a new scenario type, incorporating the best aspects of past scenarios, while removing the most disliked or incompatible mechanics. We also wanted to make sure that this new scenario had a different feel, entirely.

I want to save the full reveal for @Andyb’s blog post, which will cover it more in-depth. But here are a few teasers:

Survivors? Naw, not in here! No picking up a hammer and standing in Filth puddles.

Scaling difficulty inside the scenario? Yep. Start at a difficulty you’re comfortable with, and push yourself to go as far as you can! It’ll be well worth the effort.

Timed intermission? Nope, you need to go AFK for 5 minutes after a wave? Go for it. Just make sure to tell your Duo partner first…

Unpredictable and fast paced enemies? Yes, indeed.

Testing for this scenario is already underway, and the initial feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

And of course there is a strong story backing this addition, complete with its own Legends. Just don’t tell the Druids I said that. Wait… oops.

See you on patch day,