Hello Immortals,

For the past couple of months, the Skyforge teams in Moscow and here at Obsidian have been hard at work getting the game ready for the first official Closed Beta Test. This means a lot of late nights polishing content, getting things tested and fixing bugs. Although it’s hard work, it’s a lot of fun, and it represents a big transition for the project as we move from focusing on content development and internal feedback, to CBT activities and external input. We’ve heard from many of you who are anxious to get into the game and we are just as eager to get you in, hear your feedback and see what you like & don’t like.

In addition to all the work that’s going on in-game, we’ve also got a lot happening behind the scenes in both our North American and European operations groups and in their respective data centers. In order to support an MMORPG like Skyforge as its user base grows during the Closed Beta tests and into Open Beta, a lot of checkboxes have to be ticked; hardware deployment configurations need testing, critical back end services like authentication and patching need to be setup and content localization (both text and voice) need to be completed, implemented and tested. All of this behind the scenes work happening right now is to ensure the game is adequately prepared for the coming months of external testing.

As many of you already know, some CBT activities have already started in the Russian territory where this infrastructure has already been established. There, we’ve begun testing Skyforge server loads and are gathering feedback on critical aspects of the game. You can expect us to roll out similar tests in North America and Europe in the very near future. Your participation in these CBT tests, along with your feedback and input is vital to us. It’s this feedback that will help us improve Skyforge going forward and make it great!

We’ve also got a lot more work to do on the game side of things this time around, in comparison to the Tech Beta Weekend which we ran in 2014. Starting with CBT1, we’ll support more players, have more content and features enabled, and will be keeping our test servers up for longer and longer periods of time as CBT progresses. In addition to all the new content you’ll come across and adventure in, you’ll also get some hands-on time with a few new features in CBT1 including; Character Customization, Itemization and Upgrades, the Marketplace and the Greatness system - your followers and temples.

The release of the CBT is just the beginning though, and there’s a lot more to be revealed in the upcoming months. We’ll be unveiling details on a number of awesome features like; our founders packs, raids, Pantheon Wars and other social content, additional player classes, more about god forms, invasions and much, much, more!

We’ve had a lot of inquiries from people who want to see more gameplay or who want to stream Skyforge themselves. Just recently we released our first in-house stream featuring the Gunner class, and we’ll continue to host more of our own streams to show off new features, classes and content in support of our beta activities. In addition, we’ll be giving certain streamers in our community the opportunity to get involved in the CBT early on and broadcast content themselves. We’ve yet to work out all the details, but if you are interested in working with us, we’d love to hear from you. The same goes for guilds who want to get involved and participate in closed beta activities, we want to hear from you too!

Thanks again to everyone for their interest, support and enthusiasm for Skyforge. We’ve seen a lot of Immortals going above and beyond to help new members of the community feel at home. Immortals like Cassy, Elveone, TonyJaa, Zephina and Silv! Not to mention all the countless other members who help spread knowledge of Skyforge across the web! We can’t wait to see all of you in Aelion.

Best,

Eric DeMilt

Skyforge Development Director - Obsidian Entertainment