In this week’s dev blog, I’m going to reveal and discuss a new (but maybe familiar) feature that is coming in Siralim Ultimate: projects! If you played Siralim 1 or 2, you might remember these as rituals. However, in Siralim Ultimate, they are a bit more interactive and rewarding.

What is a Project?

You can think of a Project as a sort of long-term side quest. Players will choose a Project they want to take on, and then gather the necessary materials to complete it. When you’re finished, you can return to the NPC in charge of projects in your castle to earn the reward associated with that project.

Players can only take on one major project at a time, as well as a certain number of minor projects. If you decide that you don’t want to move forward with your current major project, you can cancel it and choose a new one – but you’ll lose all the progress you’ve made for the cancelled project.

Starting a Project

You’ll start by choosing the type of project you’d like to take on. It costs a certain amount of Granite to start a project. Projects are broken down into three different categories:

Construction Projects – these projects most often reward players with new game features, and include things such as the Arcane Refinery or the Arena. You can upgrade many of these features using Construction Projects as well. For example, you can upgrade the blacksmith multiple times in order to increase the maximum tier that your Artifacts can attain. And yes, these enhancements come with their own visual improvements as well (see below). Typically, these projects are not repeatable, so after you complete them once, you’ll never need to complete them again. In addition, these projects are typically considered to be major projects, meaning you can only work on one of them at a time. Mission Projects – these projects give players deterministic rewards. For example, you can choose to start a “Raid Project” that targets Brimstone. After you complete the project, you’ll be rewarded with some Brimstone. Other Mission Projects are even more interesting – for example, an “Assassination Project” allows you to choose a creature’s legendary crafting material that you’d like to receive when the project is finished (these replace the Altar of Blood from Siralim 3). These projects are all typically considered to be minor projects, meaning you can work on a few of them at the same time. In addition, these projects are all repeatable, so you’ll continue to work on these projects indefinitely. Special Projects – these projects are similar to Mission Projects in that they grant players deterministic rewards. However, you’ll typically need to fulfill certain criteria to be able to take on one of these projects, such as attaining a certain favor rank with a particular god. An example of a reward from a Special Project would be to fill your summon meter for a Godspawn creature of your choice so that you can summon one. These projects are a mix of major and minor projects, and most of them are repeatable.

Here’s what the blacksmith station will look like at the start of the game. As you can see, it’s quite plain and basic.

Here’s what the blacksmith station looks like after you’ve upgraded it a couple times. There are a few tiers beyond this one as well, for a total of 5 different blacksmith stations that change in appearance as you complete their corresponding projects.

Completing a Project

Each project requires different materials that players must gather before it can be completed. Note that by “materials”, I don’t necessarily mean the standard crafting materials used for enhancing your Artifacts – most of these materials will spawn in realms only while you’re working on its corresponding project.

For example, here’s a list of things you’ll need to upgrade the blacksmith from level 2 to 3:

50 Iron Ingots (found on the ground in realms)

1 Iron Mallet (found on the ground in realms)

2000 Creature Parts (obtained by killing enemies)

5000 Arcane Dust (obtained by completing Realm Quests)

After you obtain all the required materials, you’ll be able to return to the Projects NPC in your castle to turn it in and earn your reward!

Note: all projects require some number of Creature Parts and Arcane Dust. All the other requirements vary from project to project.

Please note that nothing mentioned in this blog post is finalized. I reserve the right to change or remove anything mentioned in this post at any time. If you’re reading this post after the game has already launched, your best bet is to forget everything you just read because very few of the things I write about will remain untouched in the final product.