Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen’s latest newsletter includes a state-of-the-game memo from Creative Director Chris “Joppa” Perkins, who recaps the game’s progress since the last one (apparently in May of last year). In that time, he says, the team’s brought on multiple new team members, including an associate designer, and demoed multiple zones on-stream. Visionary Realms continues work on a new class, the “extreme climate and acclimation systems,” two new zones, “marked improvement in NPC AI,” and the disposition system.

The newsletter also revisits the topic of the class matrix, which was actually the subject of some controversy in our comments when it released some weeks ago. Apparently, it raised questions among the game’s backers as well. For example, the developers defend the game’s plan to restrict Gnomes to casters and rogues, to block Ogres from sneaking in the shadows, and to bar Dark Myr from holy classes, noting that some restrictions are a result of lore, others physique. On the other hand, the devs justify their selection of the bard for the Dark Myr, suggesting that they’ll be mournful dirges instead of peppy troubadours.