Darkest Greetings Underlord,

It's been only a week week since the release of the surprisingly massive 2.0.1 patch and the work has continued unabated. As always we've been taking feedback directly from you and have a few smaller adjustments to make alongside a handful of fixes to the issues you've helped us identify. Patch 2.0.2 is the result of this weeks work and should help stabilise the game further in the wake of our last two massive releases.

Beyond the release of this patch we don't have much news to share other than the fact that there's still a few issues we're still interested in tidying up and of course we're always happy to receive feedback or reports straight from you so please keep all your feedback coming via the forums and of course report any issues to us via User Echo!

Also if you missed our previous post, you may want to give that a read as it outlines some of the future plans for War for the Overworld. Fear not, even as we begin to shift our team across to working full-time on Project: Aftercare we plan to continue providing some support for WFTO in the coming months.

Now without further a do, read on for the Release Notes!



Augre

• Now slightly less likely to use the Foundry and slightly more likely to use the Garrison

Juggernaut

• Now slightly less likely to use the Foundry and slightly more likely to use the Garrison

Priestess

• Updated needs to match the Cutlist

Spirit Worker (Permanent)

• Movement speed reduced by 10%
  
• Work speed reduced by 25%
  
• These changes do not affect Spirit Workers created by the Spirit Worker potion

Wizard

• Updated needs to match the Witch Doctor

 

Volcanic Bridge

• Mana cost reduced from 100 to 50

• Underlord AIs can now make use of the Besiege ritual to attack enemy Dungeons
  
• Sloth focussed AIs will now be able to make use of the Infernal Urn to transform Brimstone into Quartz
  
• The AI can now use Hellfire potions
  
• Added 7 New Build Orders
  
• Adjusted a number of existing Build Orders
  
• The Medium Difficulty AI has received a number of tweaks
  
  • Now has the ability to drop units near rally flags
    
  • The rate at which it can pick up and drop units has been reduced
    
  • The rate at which is is allowed to spend sins has been reduced
    
  • It will now be slightly more aggressive
• The AI will now trigger Sentinels more intelligently
  
• The Master AI is now able to use defence parts to heal existing defences
  
• The AI will now make more intelligent use of Work-A-Lot potions
  
• When using Overcharge the AI will now wait until its Mana is exhausted
• before triggering the ritual
  
• The AI is now able to more accurately predict if it needs to return its forces to defend its Dungeon Core
  
• Further optimised the behaviour of the AI on master difficulty
  
• AIs will now hesitate less whilst attacking and will execute their plans more aggressively if they are confident of victory
  
• Bankrupt AIs now wait longer before selling rooms

Underlord Shale

• Beast spawn rate reduced from 666% to 444%
  
• Defence gold & mana cost increased from 150% to 200%

• New Animations
  
  • Democorn - Receive Pay
    
  • Baby Democorn - Receive Pay
    
  • Arcane Chunder - Sanctuary work
• Visual Tweaks to the Foundry Floor
  
• Improved the possession view of the Firebreather
  
• Adjusted the viewpoint position of the Behemoth in possession

European and Chinese localisations now in game for various text edits that were done for 2.0 and 2.0.1:

• Various user-interface text improvements, including tooltips and campaign map names
  
• Pre-2.0 Skirmish maps have had their creators’ names added to the end of their descriptions
  
• Fixed various old text style issues such as asterisks being used to show sound effects in subtitles
  
• Lord of the Land unit subtitles (for future use in the Mighty Script Editor) have been tweaked to match chosen audio takes
  
• New Mendechaus voice-over (for future use in the Mighty Script Editor) has had unique text keys added for each unique audio take being used

• Debug logs which are generated upon game crashes are now fully GDPR compliant

• Fixed a rare issue that prevented some players from opening the Under Games if they had not completed the War for the Overworld campaign

• Fixed an issue that would cause units to attempt to walk out of prisons and arenas

• Alchemines should now always load in with their potions after loading a save game

• Units are now react to the visual height of shrine floors (such as the siege shrine) and can walk on the surface without clipping

• Underlord AI's will no longer ignore the last item in their build order
  
• Fixed an issue where the Underlord AI would not use the Wisdom Juice potion on Vampires
  
• Fixed an issue where the Underlord AI would issue an attack without removing units from it's Peaceband, meaning sometimes attacks were not correctly planned and did not meet AI expectations
  
• Fixed an issue where Workers were not correctly receiving new tasks and thus would revert to older tasks such as nearby reinforce wall tasks over newer claim tile tasks
  
• Fixed an issue where the Underlord AI would be unable to determine an appropriate attack vector on large maps where the enemy is well fortified and defended

• The Empire Theme selector can now correctly select any theme, even if it is locked

• Fixed an issue where the cutscene which plays after Mandalf is turned to gold in Heart of Gold level 1 could be disrupted if he was mined by workers during the cutscene, preventing the level from ending
  
• Fixed an issue where the VFX on the objective forge on Heart of Gold level 3 would not play correctly
  
• Capturing Pre-Placed rooms in the "Seastead II" skirmish level will now correctly allow units to work in them

• Fixed an issue where Chinese fonts were not displaying correctly on OS X

• Fixed an issue on the Scenario Lobby where the mutators button was not accessible if the map could not be finished

• Fixed a number of minor issues in the codebase

Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

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Darkest greetings Underlord,

As promised in our most dark and sacred oath to you, Patch 2.0.1 has arrived in War for the Overworld, don't be fooled by the name though it's amongst our largest patches ever! Here’s what lurks within:

• Expanded Mighty Script functionality
  
• Skirmish speech for Underlord opponents
  
• Further improvements to Underlord AI
  
• LOTS of balance changes
  
• Hundreds of fixes and other changes

War for the Overworld is also on sale right now as part of the Steam Summer Sale, with up to 75% discount across the base game and DLC. Grab it while the weather’s hot!


Mighty Script has been a hugely ambitious undertaking and has already seen incredible use with hundreds of mappers already getting to grips with the new tools on the Workshop.

We’ve been taking feedback on Mighty Script from the community on what you’d like to see implemented and there’s a handful of really cool features in the new patch as well as some improvements and optimisations to make existing scripts more powerful. Here’s a quick summary:

• 10 New Triggers such as detecting when a spell is cast, a unit imprisoned or when a unit is attacked
  
• 2 New conditions including checking if players have a particular success key from the custom campaign features
  
• 24 New Actions with new AI commands, Dynamic Party configuration, Dialog Boxes, Tile Flashing or unit customisation actions
  
• Parties are now easier to setup and support additional unit configuration such as setting the speed and scale of the unit
  
• Numbers can now be Decimals as well as Integers
  
• Lists can now contain more types of variables and most values can accept input from variables or actions output to lists
  
• Other flow improvements and optimisations
  
• Various fixes

With all of these improvements Mighty Script has undergone quite a few changes but fear not your previous maps should be completely compatible and rest assured now that Patch 2.0.1 is in your hands and Mighty Script even more expansive we’re now looking to get those tutorials to you asap!

We’ve livened up Skirmish audio with speech from ALL the Underlord opponents! They will now taunt you and react to various events as the battle progresses. You’ll hear Oberon gallantly face defeat as his health dwindles; Kasita celebrate her victory by welcoming you into her treasure trove; Korvek proclaim that he is greater than the sum of his parts!


Now Mira can tell you herself that you are nothing but an earthworm to be squashed beneath her metaphysical boot

We got all the original actors back to reprise their roles, and added over 400 new lines of speech! This also includes the trio of Underlords introduced in The Under Games – Shale, Lamash, and Volta!

We hope this feature adds an extra layer of character and charm; but if you do want to turn the voices off you can do so from the Sound Options.

Stefan, our artificial intelligence wizard, made huge renovations to the Underlord AI for Patch 2.0. But he hasn’t stopped there, and has continued to conjure and tinker with the goal of giving you the ultimate challenge. And judging by the feedback from our loyal Foundry tester imps, he may well have succeeded!

AI improvements include:

• More entertaining gameplay, and more challenge for highly-skilled players
  
• The AI will play the Sloth tree in the Veins of Evil much more effectively
  
• Significant increase in the number of Aspects the AI can use and more build order variety per personality
  
• Optimised to work with the 2.0.1 balance changes
  
• Substantial AI performance improvements

The entire game has undergone a substantial balancing pass, along with tweaks to certain modes and levels, and fixes to a number of bugs. All can be garnered from our full release notes. Warning, it’s very long!

At the start of this month, we outlined our thoughts and feelings in the wake of John “Totalbiscuit” Bain’s tragic passing, and how his work had helped to ensure our success with War for the Overworld. In that same post, we announced our partnership with our friends at Chrono.gg to place War for the Overworld on a 24-hour sale with 100% of our proceeds going to John’s family as a small way of repaying him and honouring his memory.

We’re pleased to announce that the campaign was a huge success and together with Chrono.gg we raised a staggering $32,905 for John’s wife Genna and their son Orion. This amount was so much more than we could ever have dreamed of raising and we can only be thankful for everyone who bought the game in support of this cause.



All funds raised were donated to the John Bain Memorial GoFundMe on the 7th of June contribuuting to the $338,411 raised so far that will go towards ensuring the security of John’s family in these difficult times.



Genna has posted her personal thank you and talked more about the challenges ahead in a recent Reddit post which you can read here.

We’d like to thank all the incredible support offered by the WFTO community in helping us to honour the memory of a man who is hugely responsible for the success of this project.

As you may have heard Valve have recently deployed new developer and publisher profile pages for the Steam Store these new pages provide a central location to hear from your favourite developers about their latest games.



We’re pleased to be amongst the first to adopt this new development and we’d like to invite all our fans to drop by and follow us to ensure you get notified as we move into the future of Brightrock Games!


As we said last time, Patch 2.0.1 is probably going to be the last content update for WFTO. However, we’ll still be listening out for your bug tickets and triaging them accordingly, so please still send them our way.

We’re still working on improvements to the Mighty Script Editor as well, and are in the process of locking down the text ready for translation. However, we’ve made the decision to only translate into French, German, and Russian for now, because these are our most active communities; since there is a large amount of text to translate, we feel this will strike a good balance between cost and benefit.

We’re also going to add new banks of speech and sound effects to certain units, to help improve the atmosphere. We’ll of course let you know when all these updates are added to the game.

We hope you enjoy Patch 2.0.1, which is free to download now!

And don’t forget the Steam Summer Sale, with huge discounts to be had across all War for the Overworld products. Bring the heat!

Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

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Hello everyone,

As most of you likely already know, John “TotalBiscuit” Bain passed away last week after years fighting a courageous and protracted battle with cancer.


John Peter Bain

July 8, 1984 – May 24, 2018


He is survived by his wife Genna and son Orion, whom all our thoughts are with. We hope that they will find strength and support in each other as well as their friends, family and the gaming community at large, in the wake of this immeasurable loss.

Today we wish to share our thoughts and feelings in the wake of a great man’s passing. Like many of you, we have been following his career a long time, and it’s safe to say that his influence has had, and continues to have, a great impact on our lives.

What follows is entirely our own reflection upon an individual who played a key role in the formative years of our company, and to whom we owe a great deal. To us, this is our opportunity to honour his memory as well as a chance for us to give back in the best way we can: by using our game to raise funds to support Genna and Orion.

When we heard the news in the early hours of Friday morning, we were devastated. A deep sense of loss was felt by many of us on the team, not least those who had the opportunity to meet John in person.


Josh meeting John and Genna at Coxcon 2015



A few of us posted on social media shortly after, to join the many voices offering tributes. But posting our immediate reaction didn’t leave much opportunity to reflect, and identify just why John was such an important figure in the collective memory of our company.

Looking at John’s career, his contributions to the gaming community are well known. He was renowned for always providing his honest opinion on any topic, and reviewing games in a thoroughly structured and thoughtful manner. He never shied away from being blunt about the truth, no matter how much it cost him. He was an unyielding advocate for consumers in an industry that is often anti-consumer – and this is no doubt something that we took to heart ourselves.

But it’s how he used his position to shine a light upon smaller developers and content creators, who were emerging upon the scene, which had the greatest impact on us as a company. His support enabled us and many others to get off the ground, and have a chance in this challenging industry.

All the way back in 2012, when we launched the War for the Overworld Kickstarter, we were a plucky band of unknowns strewn across the world, with nothing but a dream to bring about the return of dungeon management games.



Our campaign was met with a reasonable reception, but the momentum didn’t hold for long, and we soon found ourselves looking at the possibility of a failed Kickstarter. But on the 22nd of December we received a huge influx of backers, and a momentum that drowned out even the start of our campaign, exactly when we needed it. It was all thanks to a single video created by John:

https://youtu.be/rWgcg6aqgLU

The impact was incredible, with the upswing over the next two days accounting for over a quarter of our funding. The momentum created steadily pushed us past our funding goal, and the rest is history. Without this extra push, it’s unlikely that the Kickstarter would have succeeded, and the project would have most likely failed at the first hurdle. The past five years would have looked very, very different.



The Totalbiscuit effect in action.


That wouldn’t be the last time that John’s coverage would change the course of our project either. Shortly after we launched into Early Access, he released a second video, once again resulting in a massive uptick in sales and support, which would prove invaluable for what was to come.

https://youtu.be/x5CRtNAQ6Sc

It is safe to say that a lot of things did not go according to plan in the War for the Overworld project, we’d alluded to some of them in early blog posts, and would share much more about them over the coming years. A lack of experience on our part led us to many harsh lessons about how truly difficult developing a game like War for the Overworld could be.

The early access video came at a time when we were struggling to make ends meet, the project had been blown off track and we were working feverishly to recover. But a huge amount of damage was done. Once again John’s timely coverage boosted support enough for us to put together a plan of stability for the coming years, and sustain ourselves until very near the 2015 release.

We would interact with John a few more times after his coverage of us, and each time he was a delight. We were even fortunate enough to be able to use his likeness for “The Cynical Imp” in raising funds for charity, which to date has generated over $40,000 in revenue for GamesAid.



The Cynical Imp has raised over $40,000 in revenue for the GamesAid charity, helping disadvantaged and homeless children throughout the UK.

And all throughout this and the last years, John continued to dedicate himself to the gaming community, inspiring and supporting other developers like us, building communities, and providing his trademark wit and a critical but fair eye towards the games that released.

So to John “TotalBiscuit” Bain, who we owe more than we think he ever knew: May you rest well and forever be remembered for the great things you’ve accomplished, and the incredible, tireless effort you poured into your work.

Our thoughts now rest with Genna and Orion, who have suffered most from this loss. To that end, we have partnered with our friends at Chrono to donate to the John Bain Memorial GoFundMe. We have placed War for the Overworld and The Cynical Imp on sale for the next 24 hours, with 100% of Brightrock Games and Chrono.gg proceeds going straight to the fund.

This fund was arranged by David Sievers, to help provide financial support to Genna and Orion and alleviate some of the challenges they now face. It is our sincerest hope that this small contribution will go some way towards helping them through this trying time.

We could never truly repay John for the support he lent to War for the Overworld, and by extension our futures. But we hope that this contribution can help provide some stability to his family’s future, in the way John provided for ours.

Thank you for your support,

– Brightrock Games Team


Click here to visit the Chrono.gg Fundraiser Sale Page

Darkest greetings Underlord,

It’s been just a couple of weeks since we unleashed the gargantuan Patch 2.0 and The Under Games expansion; the reception has been incredible! We can’t thank all our fans enough for making this release our best yet!

In the wake of release the momentum hasn’t yet stopped carrying us forward, and today we’re going to expand upon on our plans for War for the Overworld beyond 2.0. We’ll be addressing a few elephants which have made a home in our lair and answering your lingering questions. So join us as we unveil our plans!

Following Patch 2.0 we’ve unleashed a number of smaller hotfixes to address the most critical issues. You can read the compiled notes for these here. However, we’ve also been working on a larger update not only to pile in some content which missed the boat, but also to address some excellent feedback from all of you.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be hard at work on this patch which we aim to release in mid-June, if not sooner. As you might expect it won’t be as all-encompassing as 2.0, but it should still be quite a significant update nonetheless.

Here’s a taste of what’s to come:

• Mighty Script expansion - we’ll continue to enhance the tools with some key improvements like:
  
  • Using Variables (Numbers, Switches, Lists) as an input in many cases
    
  • Most Events will be usable as an output, where you can set one of the above variables
    
  • More flexible Parties that can be dynamically adjusted while the map is running, or even randomised using Lists
    
  • More Events, Conditions and Actions to further enhance your scripts
• Skirmish AI voice-overs - the enemy AI Underlords will now taunt you, giving you more reason to wipe the floor with them
  
• Adjustments to The Under Games - in particular the playable Underlords will receive some rebalancing
  
• Further balancing across the whole game, following up from the huge balance pass in 2.0
  
• Fixes for many issues not yet addressed by our hotfixes

Moving beyond the release of 2.0, we’ve already stated that we’d like to focus more on community-driven content as part of our long-term support of WFTO. But what does that mean for you?

Well, first of all, we’ve started planning a structure for more regular Community Spotlights, which we’ll use to highlight the most creative, interesting and fun maps from our community. Each spotlight will focus on the varied game modes now within WFTO - expect to see spotlights for Deathmatch, King of the Underhill and Core Shards, alongside Scenarios, Custom maps, My Pet Dungeon and of course Custom Campaigns!

We’ll be looking to work with our content creators to package all our spotlights up into easily downloadable formats, such as Steam Workshop collections and single files on our forums (for those players not on Steam). We may also look towards integrating some maps directly into the game so that everyone can enjoy them without needing to explore our spotlights!



The Golden Worker and more awaits the most dedicated and talented creators!

Naturally, we’ll always be on the lookout for awesome creations, and we’ll be announcing our full plans for this in the comings weeks and months - so keep your eyes peeled!

We’re also planning to make getting into map creation as easy as possible, with new tutorials on the use of the Map Editor and Mighty Script, as well as more expansive documentation for creators to reference.


Over the past few months as we worked towards Patch 2.0 and The Under Games release, we discussed briefly what our plans are moving forward.

We’ve already announced that following this huge release we will start to transition our development team onto the upcoming Project Aftercare, and away from WFTO. Though we’ve yet to make this transition we will be doing so after the release of Patch 2.0.1.

What this means is that 2.0.1 will likely be our last patch to have new official features or content; and though there are still some things in the pipeline beyond it, we won’t be working on anything new for WFTO which isn’t already in that pipeline.

This doesn’t mean the end of support, however, and for the foreseeable future we’re going to focus some members of our team on supporting community content and maintaining the game’s longevity. They’ll occasionally patch in community-made levels, and provide important bug fixes as necessary.

We should be clear that this meanswe will now be more particular with how we approach developing and releasing fixes. In most cases, due to work on Project Aftercare, our team won’t have time to work on expansive patches - rather we’ll be putting out smaller patches and fixes as they are needed.

We’d still recommend that you submit any issue you have to our bug tracker following the release of 2.0.1 - but be aware this will go into our long-term maintenance triage process, where we determine the scope of work required versus the value of the overall fix.

Ultimately whilst this is the end of a great chapter for War for the Overworld and Brightrock Games, it’s far from the end of the story. There’s so much more we want to do with not just this universe but many more to come. So please keep an eye out for us in the next few years - we can’t wait to share our full plans with you!

And as always we must humbly thank you, and all our backers, supporters, fans and customers for your support. This magical journey has only been possible thanks to your constant devotion, and we hope to repay that back a thousand-fold for years to come!


Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

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Darkest greetings Underlord,

It’s been nearly three weeks since wew unleashed the massive Patch 2.0 and The Under Games expansion. Since that time we’ve been hard at work trying to address any problems our players have encountered the slipped through the cracks of our testing.

Through the incredible efforts of our stalwart volunteers as well as our programmers and of course the ever-patient community we’ve squashed a whole swathe of bugs in our recent hotfixes and there’s more fixes to come in the upcoming Patch 2.0.1!

In case you haven’t been following our efforts thus far we’ve compiled together the results of the 2.0 hotfixes here for your convenience. The following patches are all included in these notes:

• 2.0f2 - April 20th
  
• 2.0f3 - April 20th
  
• 2.0f4 - April 21st
  
• 2.0f6 - April 21st
  
• 2.0f8 - April 24th
  
• 2.0f9 - April 25th

We’re now shifting our efforts entirely onto the not-insignificant Patch 2.0.1 which you can read more about in our latest announcement alongside our future plans for WFTO.


Crashes & Gamestoppers

• Fixed some users not being able to load into The Under Games if they did not also own Heart of Gold
  
• Fixed an issue related to a corrupted options file that caused some users to not be able to load into certain campaigns

Units

• Resolved an issue that caused Banshees to be immune to projectile attacks

Defences

• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused Blade Lotuses to not deal damage

Spells

• Fixed being able to accidentally add all units to the Peaceband
  
• Resolved an issue that caused the Heal spell to sometimes fail to cast

Levels

• Fixed some issues with several Blade Lotuses in the first level of Heart of Gold

Map Editor, Custom Campaigns & Community Translations

• Fixed custom campaigns not uploading
  
• Fixed the community translation upload screen not functioning

AI

• Fixed a pathfinding issue that would cause units to attempt to talk through Dungeon Cores and Gateways
  
• Some minor AI-related fixes

UI

• Further fixes to the minimap-going-black issue - this is still not entirely resolved but should now occur far less often
  
• Resolved most instances of flickering in the UI
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the Skirmish menu to not load correctly

Audio

• Empowered Banshee tutorial VO is now correctly hooked up

Visual

• Fixed animation issues with The Duke and various Chunders
  
• Fixed some animations issues with the Emperor, Priestess and Matriarch

Localisation

• All languages should now display correctly in all parts of the game & the editor - including the Japanese community translation
  
• Fixed Chinese subtitles in Kasita's Under Games intro
  
• Fixed a font-related issue caused by an earlier hotfix
  
• Fixed an issue causing the Chinese localisation to not display properly under certain circumstances

Miscellaneous

• Minor error fixes & performance improvements
  
• Fixed several errors that related to poor performance
  
• Fixed Skirmish achievements not awarding correctly
  
• Fixed a minor issue with cutscenes
  
• Further fixes to corrupted options files

That covers all the work our dedicated Chunders have put in over the last few weeks! Keep your ear to the ground for further news on Patch 2.0.1 in the coming weeks!

Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

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Darkest greetings Underlord,

The wait is over! Through the broiling, discordant mass of the Aether the end is in sight and the prize within our grasp. Kairos lies ahead, unprotected but for a smattering of would-be heroes and the ever elusive deity Kira. The conquest of new realms is your raison d’être but you know what they say: Practise makes perfect Underlord!

This time there can be no mistakes, no failures, and Kira will not escape your wrath yet again. To that end we must prepare. Now answer this call-to-arms: join The Under Games, and prove yourself the greatest of the Underlords! But beware: the rules of war have changed with the gargantuan free Patch 2.0, and there is much for you to learn. And don’t look now, but the Ultimate Edition is casting its monstrous shadow across the Overworld as well!

Read on Underlord!


The Under Games is underway and it awaits a new champion to claim the title of strongest Underlord! The reward will be exquisite: leading the charge into the pathetic realm of Kairos! Will you take the mantle in this new fully-featured expansion? Available now on Steam and the new Brightrock Store (which also has physical copies of the game and other goodies)! We’re also putting the game and all DLC on sale with up to 75% off for the next 48 hours, so grab them while you can!

https://youtu.be/0OO87VOO5vE

The Under Games represents a distinct departure and challenge from any experience we’ve released before. Its focus is on Underlord vs Underlord combat in a Skirmish-like campaign, set across a variety of game modes – two of which are brand new! Choose your champion, realise their unique powers, then carve your bloody path through your kin to reach the final.

• An all-new 7-level campaign
  
  • Choose your Underlord and participate in a deadly tournament, set across a series of scenarios that call back to classic Dungeon Management gameplay!
    
  • Each of the 4 playable Underlords has a unique playstyle, driven by their powerful traits and exclusive minions and Aspects.
    
  • Each Underlord has their own path through The Under Games, meeting distinct opponents en route and experiencing their own story!
    
  • A completely overhauled AI awaits with 5 difficulty levels and a multitude of personalities to put you through your paces.
    
  • Conquer arenas with distinctive layouts and a variety of visual themes, including the new blood-soaked Sanguine theme.
• 2 new games modes
  
  • Race to capture and hold key positions in King of the Underhill, which will then blast your opponent’s Dungeon Core from distance.
    
  • Mount a multipronged attack against your opponent’s Core Shards, then watch as their dungeon crumbles.
• 3 new Underlords with their own unique unlockable Dungeon Themes.
  
• 9 new Aspects expand your Veins of Evil, with new defences, constructs, potions and spells!
  
• New terrain features and shrines await in the Underworld, such as the ultra-hard Quartz and Moongate teleportation shrine.

As War for the Overworld’s final expansion we wanted to deliver an experience unlike any other so far, filled to the brim with new concepts and content to ensure that each time you play you get a different experience.



This is a game of strategy

Want to know more? Take a deep dive into each of the new Underlords and their new Aspects:

• Meet Underlord Shale – The Wild Stampede!
  
• Meet Underlord Volta – The Infernal Contraption!
  
• Meet Underlord Lamash – The Rotting Reaper!

Alongside The Under Games we’re unleashing the truly gargantuan free Patch 2.0 upon the unsuspecting Underworld, packed to the brim with features, content and improvements. It’s the largest single update ever released for War for the Overworld!

In fact it’s so big that we couldn’t compile all the release notes in time. So instead we’ve compiled a list of the major features and improvements, as well as details on the huge balance update. Even with just that focus the list is longer than any other update we’ve ever released; but rest assured that there are many more fixes and minor improvements in there as well.

You can read our release notes here (English only).

If you’d rather dive right in then here are the headlining changes:

• Remastered Main Campaign including new cinematic cutscenes, new terrain themes, rebalanced levels, and improved tutorials.
  
• Vastly expanded Map Editor features as long-requested by our fans: build maps for nearly any mode, including My Pet Dungeon, and use the new Mighty Script Editor to trigger complex events. Now you can truly create the levels you’ve always wanted to, and even chain them together to make narrative campaigns!
  
• More types of content on the Steam Workshop, with scripted custom scenarios and campaigns arriving when our industrious community get their hands on the new tools. The best will be curated by us, so you won’t miss a beat.
  
• New game modes to use in Skirmish, Multiplayer and the Map Editor: claim key positions in King of the Underhill, or destroy fragments of your opponents in Core Shards.
  
• Devastating New Underlord AI, rebuilt from the foundations to challenge even the most scheming players. Our new AI can use all the tools and tricks you’ve come to rely on – can you rise to the challenge?
  
• Sanguine and Snowy terrain themes now available in the enhanced Map Editor, which recast levels in either blood red or ice white.
  
• New Sacrifice ritual calls back to the origins of the Dungeon Management genre: drop different combinations of minions onto your Sanctuary Altar, and if the dark god Mendechaus is feeling generous, you might get something exciting in return!
  
• Polished to a shine! You’ll find countless new animations, gameplay improvements, balance adjustments, significant performance optimisations, and other changes and fixes – as you’ve come to expect from us in our quest to create the ultimate Dungeon Management experience.

As you can see we’ve really dug deep on this release, and there’s barely a part of the game that hasn’t been touched up in some way. And thanks in no small part to the efforts of our volunteer QA testers, the enhanced Map Editor is sure to excite and deliver some incredible opportunities for User Generated Content. We hope you have fun exploring its untold depths!



We can’t wait to see what you build when you get your Hand of Evil on the new tools!

With that in mind we’ve overhauled both the Steam Workshop and our own Foundry forum to help with sharing this content. In the coming weeks and months, we also plan to start spotlighting the work of our industrious content authors in a new series of Community Spotlights. There will be rewards!


To bring the complete experience of War for the Overworld together as we round off the game, we’re launching the Ultimate Edition! This includes everything you need to get the most out of the game – and it’s all wrapped up in a package with a permanent 10% discount! Kasita can barely keep her Hand of Avarice off of it!

• War for the Overworld Base Game & Free Crucible Expansion
  
• Heart of Gold Expansion
  
• My Pet Dungeon Expansion
  
• The Under Games Expansion
  
• Underlord Edition Extras (dungeon theme, soundtrack, lore books)

You can grab The Ultimate Edition from Steam and our very own store! And whilst the huge sale is on you can grab all this with a whopping 63% off! ($24.40, £17.89, €23.29.)



As always we’ll be continuing to monitor the release; if you run into any issues please let us know through our usual support channels. For our future plans regarding War for the Overworld, we’re still trying to determine exactly what small updates may be coming and when. At the very least we’ll likely be rolling out one more minor patch with a few small features, such as custom voice-over to support map creators; so if you have any suggestions please let us know!

We’ll also be discussing in the coming weeks exactly what future support for WFTO will look like. So please be patient with us and expect an announcement soon.

Beyond that we’re not quite ready to announce anything else just yet. Watch this space.

But for now, don your Hand of Evil, get ready to run the gauntlet, and seize your copy of The Under Games from Steam or our very own store. It’s time to make your move!

And remember: If you’re yet to experience the wonders of running your own dungeon, there’s never been a better time to be bad than with the new and heavily-discounted Ultimate Edition! Claim it now on Steam or our store!



We’ll see you underground.

Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

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Darkest greetings Underlord,

Soon The Under Games will commence and there is one final challenger who has yet to make their debut. Although Lamash may be last she is certainly not least! As master of death itself she has quite the unique set of talents to bring to bear. This is best summarised by the dead waker herself:

https://youtu.be/ynZnkgCwnXQ


Lamash was resurrected from limbo by Mendechaus to serve in his armada. She was once a powerful sorceress who was recruited as Underlord Shale’s understudy. But Lamash was more interested in dark magic than lobbing random ingredients into a cauldron - and so she was right to be, because it was an unfortunate combination of ingredients (Rat teeth, Augre bogeys and Chunder vomit) that one day exploded in her face and killed her. So now she’s an Underlord, out to win The Under Games, and out to get revenge.


Lamash sees that the path to victory is paved with the dead, and the only care she has for the living is as fodder for her Crypts and Necromancers. Her undisputed mastery of the dead originates primarily from her trait Undead Horde.



With this trait Lamash is able to raise incredible numbers of undead very quickly - with just a few corpses she’ll soon have a vast force of shuffling skeletons at her disposal, with her Necromancers easily shepherding up to twenty Ghouls each. And that’s before we even get to the readily-attracted Shamblers and Restless Spirits.


It's close to midnight, something evil's lurking from the dark


Lamash has unlocked ancient necromantic secrets which have long lain dormant, and through these deploys yet unseen horrors from the realm of death. Brewed into the unholy Reincarnation potion, the forces within this vial will raise a small legion of volatile Banshees when they are splashed onto fresh corpses.


“WRISE FROM YAWR GRAVE!”

These floating abominations are deadly in their volatility, being literal living bombs which will make their way towards the nearest enemy-held objective, whether that is a Dungeon Core, Core Shard or Underhill. Upon reaching an obstacle they will explode, to create a clear path towards their target ready for the rest of the slithering masses to come through.

These unliving torpedos are also regularly spawned from the new Nether Shrine, which Lamash will certainly be trying to seize with her decaying Hand of Evil as soon as she can.


Summon Banshees from the nether regions! Wait, wut?!


Lamash cares little for the living denizens of her dungeon, and it’s safe to say that there is no love lost there. In fact, since she often uses these beings as fodder or resources to produce more dead, it’s become increasingly difficult for her to attract living units at all.

As a result of her trait Hazard Pay, the wages of all living units are tripled in cost - if they’re going to die for her, they want to live a little before they snuff it. This means she can only keep a small and compact dungeon of live units, while sacrificing others to the various “recycling” mechanics at her disposal.



As with Shale and Volta her Veins of Evil are modified and trimmed to focus on her playstyle, though Lamash has a versatile selection with plenty of core rituals and potions available.



So as we leave Lamash to enact mass slaughter and raise an army of the dead, we now look towards Friday and the beginning of The Under Games! Volta, Shale, Lamash, and the rest of the Underlords are ready and waiting. Are you?

Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

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Darkest greetings Underlord!

Today we're going to be diving in to the new Map Editor features & Mighty Script editor. As this is an incredibly lengthy preview that pushes the limit of Steam's announcements supported length we're going to ask you the terrible inconvenience of clicking this link in order to view it on our website

We're also sharing knowledge that we will be updating our EULA with Patch 2.0 and we felt it was important to let you know in advance. So when you've had your fill of the Mighty Script editor please have a read of that!

Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

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Darkest greetings Underlord,

The march towards The Under Games continues unabated, and today we’re delving into the dungeon of Underlord Volta! Just like Shale, he has some comments to make about his own chances of winning The Under Games, so we invited him to explain his strategy to you:

https://youtu.be/s56Qo5K0jls


Volta is a steam-powered Underlord created long ago. Was he the result of Mendechaus playing Frankenstein, or a now-lost civilisation building their own monster to fend off invaders? Regardless, Volta is now the workhorse that drives the Underlords and their machine of war across the cosmos.

Unable to comprehend the difference between good and evil, he is less sadistic than his brethren; but as a cold and calculating contraption, his indifference to life makes him even more sinister. He believes he will win The Under Games because he is the only one that can fathom the optimum strategy.


Volta makes no secret of the fact that he thinks other Underlords, such as Shale and Rhaskos, are misguided in their volatile and overtly aggressive strategies. In contrast, he is a cool player that bides his time in any situation, fully preparing his battle line and gradually creeping across the map in an unstoppable tide of fire and iron, achieved through his trait Iron Curtain.



Through this powerful trait Volta is going to be diving right into building his defences as soon as he hits the ground. With vastly improved Defence Part build speed and reduced costs to all his defences, it should be expected that wherever Volta is, there will be a nigh-impenetrable wall of iron between him and his adversary. Moreover, with Chilli, Chilly and Arcane Chunders at his disposal, he’ll have a larger workforce ready to produce Parts, who can fulfil other roles as well!




But it’s not just the defences you’ve come to know that will be making up Volta’s fortifications – in fact he’s got a whole new set of tricks up his sleeve! The Storm Vortex is a brand new defence that is both deadly and disruptive: its primary mode hurls bolts of lightning at enemies, and its secondary mode opens wholesale into a vortex, which warps enemies back to their own dungeon in exchange for a slice of the Vortex’s health relative to the target’s power.



A well placed Storm Vortex can be the key to disrupting an attack from a hot-headed Underlord

The flexibility of his defensive line is enhanced further through the Alchemine, a booby trap which can hold any potion; when an enemy gets too close the trap will spring, and the potion’s contents will be splashed all over them! This keeps his enemies at bay, and allows him to spend more time planning out his next move. Perhaps that next move will involve an assault of Thunderlings, the devastating elemental bruisers that he can amass behind closed doors.



The Alchemine pairs well with the new effects granted to many of the potions

And if you think there might be a chink in Volta’s armour-plated dungeon, then you might be surprised by what you find in the Infernal Urn, a mystical defence which channels the power of flame. It burns nearby enemies in an area, but can also be activated to absorb nearby sources of fire, whether that be by turning Brimstone into Quartz, vanquishing Ember Demons, or destroying Underminers! So for those thinking of assaulting Volta with explosive power… think again!




For all of Volta’s virtues in the defensive arts, his cautious calculating nature causes him to spurn anything unruly or chaotic. To him the height of Underlordliness is to preserve order within one’s own domain, like a carefully crafted piece of clockwork.

To this end his negative trait Civilised prevents him from attracting any Beasts, or building the Beast Den at all – after all, Beasts cannot be controlled so readily as those that can be employed.



If by some circumstance he does find himself in possession of a Beast Den then he’ll be attracting Badass Flying Chunders to his dungeon – the closest he’ll ever come to owning a true Beast.

As with the other new Underlords, Volta’s Veins of Evil have also been modified and trimmed to focus on his playstyle, as you can see below:



And thereby ends our dive into the mechanical machinations of Volta. We hope you’ll join us again next week for the final Underlord reveal; but first join us in three days for a look at the new Map Editing functionality headed your way! Volta is certainly chomping at the bit to get his Hand of Evil on these new tools.

Until next time, bide your time.

Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

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Darkest greetings Underlord,

On Friday we revealed the first Underlord to make their claim upon the spot as greatest Underlord in The Under Games. Today we’re going to delve into the other half of the upcoming release with a focus on some of Patch 2.0’s features!

What goodies can we coax out of the Cultists today? Let us delve right in!


First up we have the brand new Sanguine terrain theme! This meaty coating redefines what it means to poke through the depths, turning your pickaxe into a scalpel, and dungeon management into an autopsy!



I hope your constitution can take it Underlord, because when combined with the new Blood Chasms, it can make for a redder than red sanguine nightmare. Don’t go fainting on us now..



And of course this new terrain theme will be available for use in the new Map Editor, alongside the whiter than white Snowy theme you became familiar with in My Pet Dungeon.


Over the years we’ve expanded War for the Overworld well beyond our initial concepts and beyond what we could ever have dreamed possible. With the wealth of new content, features and improvements since 2015, and with 2.0 looking to be the final major patch, we thought now would be a great time to look back at the Main Campaign and give it a spitshine. But what exactly does that mean? Read on!

Firstly, using the new terrain theming we can now vary the environments across the original campaign. So when for example you travel through the Shifting Bond portal, expect to see the new Sanguine theme; this fittingly turns Rhaskos’ realm into the bloodbath it was always meant to be.

Meanwhile, if you’re preparing your ambush for the none-too-clever dwarves in Belmorne’s Pass, then make sure you pack some sweaters for your minions, because it’s suddenly got quite cold in the mountains.



That’s not all that we’ve tweaked in the campaign however: There are a number of gameplay and tutorialisation improvements in the earlier levels, as well as a completely rebuilt Level 12. with Draven, Kasita and Korvek all making appearances in The Under Games, we felt it was high time their level got a few layout changes.



We’ve also introduced a slew of new cutscenes throughout the campaign, to improve the areas where we felt the storytelling was missing something. We feel these new cinematics help tell the story we originally set out to, but in a way we couldn’t have possibly done way back then; especially where the ending is concerned, we hope you now get more clarity and resolution.



There’s a number of smaller changes as well, including more than a few balance adjustments. We hope that together all these updates make the campaign feel like a much more refined experience.


Oh yes, this one has been a long time coming! One of the few things we revealed about Patch 2.0 a very long time ago was the fact that we were working on improvements to the Skirmish AI, which drives how your rival Underlords behave.

We’ve been wanting to do this for quite some time, as our original AI was developed during the rushed months leading up to release. Though it has received some improvements over the years, its available strategies were still limited – and more crucially it had an all too shallow understanding of the Aspects in the Veins of Evil.



Bombards and how to place them – a concept which confused the old AI, now realised by the new!

For 2.0 we’ve gone the whole hog! Rather than taking what already exists and improving on it, we’ve instead taken the lessons learned and built a whole new AI from the ground up. Trained on the tactics used by our most seasoned community members, experienced in the ways of placing Bombards, and fed on a steady stream of fears, tears and nightmares, this new AI really does put the “Fright” in “Steven Fright”!

The AI is capable of analysing situations within its vision, making tactical decisions, and determining an appropriate course of action. If it identifies potential chokepoints it may decide to fortify them, or it may choose to pursue objectives which are least-defended by enemy forces.



The AI makes its decisions based on many variables – here’s a visualisation of its brain!

As always the AI comes in many different flavours, with the original five difficulty levels returning as realised levels of intelligence. Alongside these we have new personality sets, which showcase distinctly different playstyles, and which are paired with individual Underlords. This means that Underlords will behave befitting of their personalities, in both The Under Games, and within Skirmish and Multiplayer.

Steven Fright meanwhile has retired to sunnier pastures, a little too intimidated it seems by the recent advances in AI. But eagle-eyed Underlords may yet spot his handsome face within The Under Games:



The handsome face of Evil, who bears an uncanny resemblance to our AI developer, Stefan Furcht…

This about wraps us up on this feature preview, but rest assured that the biggest is yet to come (a little thing called the Map Editor). But first, on Friday we’ll be diving into yet another of the new Underlords: the mechanical mastermind that is Volta!

Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

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