Battlerite hit Steam this year late summer and has only seen explosive growth since. But what happens when that growth begins to plateau? Stunlock Studios says they’re not worried. Today, the developers released a blog explaining the team’s current position and their plans for the future.



On Steam, Battlerite maintains an impressive review score of 95% from English-speakers (Stunlock maintains that several non-English reviews were largely because of lack of regional support at the time) and has sold several hundred thousand copies already. The game boasts a total of 400,000 players, much higher than ever imagined by its developers. Battlerite has been nothing short of a huge success compared to its predecessor, Bloodline Champions.



But the game isn’t complete yet. “Before the Early Access launch, Battlerite was in development for a year and a half,” the announcement said, explaining that the game has been under close scrutiny for a long time before it even reached the shelves of consumers. It’s no news to the developers that there’s a lot of work left to be done.



"With our limited resources, we decided to focus on gameplay, gameplay, gameplay. Being an independent and self-owned studio, our finances were catching up to us and we believed the gameplay to be fun enough for players to start enjoying. Now, with financing out of the picture, we see nothing but success on the horizon for Battlerite. We know there is a lot of work to be done, but we also know that Battlerite will improve and grow for years to come with your continuing support and feedback."



The Early Release has opened up a lot of doors that were previously closed for the small Swedish group. As a small independent studio, Stunlock had been working on a clock developing their newest game; when the finances starting catching up with them, they opted to release the game to the public with the notion that gameplay would be good enough, “With our limited resources, we decided to focus on gameplay, gameplay, gameplay. [...] Now, with financing out of the picture, we see nothing but success on the horizon for Battlerite.”





The blog laid out the docket list for future changes. Among the broad topics, Stunlock mentioned “new and exciting champions”, improvements to the UI, a better social system, and (most excitingly) more eSports. While it’s great to see plans for new champions and eSports, it’s of greater importance to continue raking in the casual players by improving the UI and social system and making Battlerite more than just a fun game to “play”. If there’s anything Stunlock has learned from its previous game, sophisticated gameplay alone will not sustain the game forever.



Specifically, though, Stunlock has fixated on a few particular issues to address immediately. Their first goal is to wade through a flood of statistics and feedback and address some of the hot topics from the community. First, they want to take a close look at matchmaking and the ranking system and provide the public with more details about them. Second, they want to continue working on experimental ideas, even if they cause imbalance, but will keep the players informed on ideas that they’re trying out. Finally, they want to improve communication all around with a few additions: an in-game news feed, social media managers, and a web-based news feed.



It appears Stunlock has learned from the mistakes of larger game developers like S2 Games, Riot, and Blizzard that communication is key to the long-term success of a game. With such a positive attitude and an open dialogue, Stunlock Studios is making a statement: this game is going to be around for a while.



