Dev Blog #82: Roadmap to the Finish Line

Battle Brothers has come a long way since it entered Early Access over a year ago, in April of 2015. Every update has brought it a step closer towards being a finished game – and there’s still a few more steps to take. Read on to learn what changes and additions are yet to come!

What’s still to come?

With the perk & injury update live and stable, we’ll now start working on the last big update to the game before it leaves Early Access. This is going to be the second-biggest update after the big worldmap update earlier this year and will take us several months to complete.

Here’s the list of major points we’ll be working on:

Three different ‘Greater Evil’ end game crises for you to get involved in – a war between noble houses, a greenskin invasion and an undead invasion. Each will come with its own set of contracts, events and changes to the world.

An overarching goal to work towards throughout your campaign, and the ability to retire at any point to receive an illustrated ending screen telling of your accomplishments.

A more lively and dynamic world, with more opportunities for you to shape it, and more relation between what is going on in the world and contracts on offer.

A memorial wall screen where your fallen Battle Brothers are listed with their deeds.

An overhaul of the mood and desertion mechanics on the worldmap.

An overhaul of the undead faction with new visuals and lore, unique lootable weapons and armor, and the introduction of new enemy types with their own fighting style.

An overhaul of ghouls as independent beasts that are more interesting and challenging to fight.

More contracts and events to change things up.

Various improvements to usability in both combat and on the worldmap.

Steam achievements.

Not included in that list are the countless smaller additions and improvements we’ll be doing along the way. As usual, all the major points and most of the minor ones will be explained in detail in future dev blogs as we go along, so you’ll always know what we’re working on and why.

This big update, once published, will then be followed by a couple of smaller updates for balancing, bug fixing and further improvements based on your feedback until the game is ready to be released.

So does that mean…?

It means that Battle Brothers will not be released in 2016. We’re looking at a release in early 2017 and you’ll be the first to know once we have a set date – most likely to happen when the last big update is live. It’s important to us that the finished game feels complete, polished and well worth its price, so we’ll take the time necessary to ensure just that and won’t rush anything.

It also means that some features that were considered at one point in development or another have been cut and will not make it into the game for now. While some concepts simply won’t fit anymore with how the game has evolved, others would still be cool to have but also require a lot of time to do right. Time that we then couldn’t spend working on other things. Game development is often about hard choices and setting priorities – what feature best to spend our limited time on? What feature will benefit the game the most? Our choices on what’s most important are reflected in the list above. If ever there is an expansion to Battle Brothers, we may revisit some of the concepts that didn’t make it into the game at first.

Also, the game has been updated

That’s right. The game has just been updated to version 0.7.0.10 with a new contract, balancing changes, a multitude of AI improvements and a couple of bug fixes. Find the changelog below.

Added new ‘Defend Settlement’ contract type.

Added ‘-nosound’ command line parameter to start the game without any sound or music.

Changed loot in lootscreen to be sorted by type.

Changed amount of ammunition and medicinal supplies dropped by enemies as loot to be lower.

Changed ‘Spear Mastery’ perk to have spearwalls inflict full thrusting damage on a hit, and no longer give a bonus to hitchance.

Changed mechanics and cost of ‘Rally the Troops’ skill to better synergize with everyone’s resolve, as well as the ‘Sergeant’ perk.

Changed ‘First Aid’ and ‘Drink Antidote’ skills to be usable only when bleeding or poisoned, respectively.

Changed AI to make more intelligent use of the ‘Puncture’, ‘Lash’ and ‘Decapitate’ skills.

Changed AI to better handle engaging into enemy spearwalls when equipped with a shield or throwing weapons.

Changed AI of more intelligent opponents to be less prone to gift the player free attacks by charging without any action points left on arrival.

Changed AI to better handle range advantages and disadvantages when deciding whether to engage or hold a defensive position.

Changed AI to make use of the wait function in more situations as to waste less action points.