Hello everybody! It is I, the regular dev blog representative Christian, here to greet you to another update. Rather than doing the regular thing I do (retelling the tales of the previous week at Stunlock Studios), I’m doing something different this time around. Let me introduce you guys to Battlerite Lite.

What is Battlerite Lite?

With Patch 0.12.2.0 we also included support for what we call Battlerite Lite. Battlerite Lite was not planned to effect any of the current players (which is why it was left from the patch notes), but as it turns out, a handful of people got an accidental sneak peak of this version of Battlerite with the patch (we apologize for any inconvenience)! It was a bug that affected players who had gotten their EA keys through a certain giveaway, as those keys worked a bit differently than regular ones. Anyway, what a few players were greeted by and what eventual players of Battlerite Lite will be greeted by, is something like this:

As you can see, only a handful of champions are available, and the ones that are not available, have a price attached to them. So what is this Battlerite Lite? In short, it is an early version of how Battlerite will work when it is eventually Free-To-Play, and is the main reason Daily Quests switched from awarding Silver Chests to awarding Battle Coins. Battlerite Lite gives players access to all six champions currently tagged as beginner friendly from the get-go, while the rest cost Battle Coins (or real currency) to unlock. The rest of the game works exactly the same and someone playing Battlerite Lite can opt to purchase the full Early Access package at anytime they wish during Early Access on the landing page.

In addition, Battlerite Lite effectively works like a sort of Battlerite Starter Pack; players who are given a Battlerite Lite key will have these six starter champions unlocked in their account when we officially enter Free-To-Play, even if they choose to not purchase the Early Access package. It’s currently looking like the F2P version will grant one champion for free (Jade) and will then have champions available to play on a free rotation. So Battlerite Lite has additional value as it unlocks five extra champions for free.

Who gets Battlerite Lite?

This is the juicy part! We’ll start by giving two Battlerite Lite keys to every Early Access player who has verified their email address on their Battlerite account and signed up to the newsletter.

Please Note: There will be a patch later this week (most likely Wednesday) so that players who have not yet signed up to the newsletter will be able to do so in the General Options menu in-game, before the Battlerite Lite keys are handed out.

So if you have friends who have been on the fence about purchasing Battlerite Early Access or have been waiting for Free-To-Play before playing, you can give them a Battlerite Lite key! After redeeming that key on Steam they will be able to play the game throughout the rest of Early Access and beyond. The plan is to send out the Battlerite Lite keys as we get closer to the weekend so sign up for the newsletter before then and keep your eyes on your email inbox around Friday!

Cool! So any other news about how F2P will work?

Why yes. As you might have guessed, we’ve started to establish more details regarding how Battlerite will work in Free-To-Play. In the next upcoming major patch (date TBA) we are planning to include new and reworked systems that will take Batttlerite a step closer to being ready for F2P. Many of these changes will naturally complement Batterite Lite. I won’t be able to go into the exact specifics as things are still being ironed out, but I can provide an overview.

Quests 2.0

We will be introducing a reworked and improved quest system in the next major patch. The gist of it is that we will be introducing multiple quest types in addition to the current Daily Quest system, with different types of rewards. The new quests in combination with the old quests are meant to offer both short and long term goals.

Account Levels

We will also be introducing account levels. As you play the game you will progress in account levels, granting a long term progression along with rewards. Account Levels will not replace Champion Levels; Champion Levels will continue to work similarly to how they do now.

“Gems”

We’ll be introducing a new currency to the game called currently called “Gems”. After this is introduced you will purchase “Gems” with your Steam Wallet and use those to purchase things in the game, instead of directly purchasing things with your Steam Wallet. You can expect the price of things to remain basically the same however.

There will be more things coming in that patch in addition to this and there are still some other things coming specifically for F2P, such as the above mentioned champion rotation. But we’ll stop here this week. Do come back next week though as we’ll continue to talk about this upcoming patch and what it will contain. And remember to sign up to the newsletter later this week to get some Battlerite Lite keys to give away!

/Christian