We’re on the homestretch with EV2! Look out for her trailer tomorrow! Like the Abyss Lord’s video, it’ll showcase her full kit in game.

I can’t wait to see what you do with her. Many of her defensed are node based, so the pattern makes a huge difference on the defense’s effectiveness. The aspect that’s interesting is not only are you thinking about where to put the defenses, you’re thinking about the node pattern in conjunction with your existing defenses or the defense of players with you. Check out Dan’s layout below! When you’re not laying down defenses, you’ll find there is a lot of flexibility in her canister-based shot patterns when paired with her abilities. She’s a cool hero and has a ton of different tools. The key is in the geometry. #Εὐκλείδης

My focus is the future. Planning for the next set of major features, doing vision-level design work, and getting way out in front of the coolness with improvements to the game that matter. We have some very big stuff coming this year. It’s going to be fun.

For now, know the dudes here are fixing bugs, refining details, polishing, and bringing it all together. It’s hard work, and lots of team folks in-house and on contract gave up tons of real life personal time to make sure EV2 rocks.




EV2 is nearly done. She’s probably our most ambitious hero to date and we’re all very excited to see what you think of her. A lot (can’t overstate this) of work went into getting her ready. Lots of stress and late hours but the team did a great job so far. Derek, Pat, John, Brian, Yao, Afshin… we all put a lot of extra hours to get her to where she is. Also Civ VI just got announced, life is beautiful.

Don’t forget: You have until Friday to choose our next map! The vote is only 6,000 points between each other, making this one of our closest votes yet. I fully expect some last-minute point bombs to drop, so make sure you’re watching the page around 12PM EDT on Friday to ensure your choice wins. And there might be a new vote on Friday...

IT’S FINALIZATION TIME! PS4 still has a little ways to go to be ready, but PC is closing in on release.

Working on fixing a number of collision issues in maps. One of EV2’s abilities (which you’ll learn more about this week) has forced our hand in polishing some problematic collision areas in our maps, as well as fixing (and in some cases finishing) our out-of-bounds (oob) geometry.

Point being: our ceiling collisions are ready.



And you can expect to see at least 50% less broken world. An example is this building. The roof doesn't look like this currently.



In addition, Dan Haddad and myself are working closely to finish off EV2’s visual effects now that we have our towers in a fun state.

Currently listening to: “Gangsta” by tUnE-yArDs

Winter's not coming in our next level; it's always there. For thousands of years only true defenders have survived in these lands!.

We already made some good progress on the ice themed level but there is a lot to be done yet. Also doing some fixes to some of the campaign levels.

We all know witches ride brooms, but do Gun Witches ride Gun Brooms? Who is to say? Certainly not I.



The Gun Witch is coming along very well. I’m excited to see her in action in the near future. Right now though, we need some laser focus on EV2. She’s so close to done, and we’re getting everything finalized. It’s great to see another hero come to fruition.

I’m in pure bug fixing mode! Doing everything I can to crank through as many bugs as possible!

Series EV2 is really coming together. I want to give a shout out to the team for their hard work. She is definitely the most complex heroine our team has done, and I especially love her VFX. (Good work Brian!) Also, special shout out to the RQA and RPG teams. We’ve given them a number of playtest builds with extremely short deadlines to fill out multiple long surveys so thank you for your help. And thanks to all of our fans who continue to support us as we continue to make improvements to the game.

We’re on the homestretch with EV2! Look out for her trailer tomorrow! Like the Abyss Lord’s video, it’ll showcase her full kit in game.

I can’t wait to see what you do with her. Many of her defensed are node based, so the pattern makes a huge difference on the defense’s effectiveness. The aspect that’s interesting is not only are you thinking about where to put the defenses, you’re thinking about the node pattern in conjunction with your existing defenses or the defense of players with you. Check out Dan’s layout below! When you’re not laying down defenses, you’ll find there is a lot of flexibility in her canister-based shot patterns when paired with her abilities. She’s a cool hero and has a ton of different tools. The key is in the geometry. #Εὐκλείδης

My focus is the future. Planning for the next set of major features, doing vision-level design work, and getting way out in front of the coolness with improvements to the game that matter. We have some very big stuff coming this year. It’s going to be fun.

For now, know the dudes here are fixing bugs, refining details, polishing, and bringing it all together. It’s hard work, and lots of team folks in-house and on contract gave up tons of real life personal time to make sure EV2 rocks.




EV2 is nearly done. She’s probably our most ambitious hero to date and we’re all very excited to see what you think of her. A lot (can’t overstate this) of work went into getting her ready. Lots of stress and late hours but the team did a great job so far. Derek, Pat, John, Brian, Yao, Afshin… we all put a lot of extra hours to get her to where she is. Also Civ VI just got announced, life is beautiful.

Don’t forget: You have until Friday to choose our next map! The vote is only 6,000 points between each other, making this one of our closest votes yet. I fully expect some last-minute point bombs to drop, so make sure you’re watching the page around 12PM EDT on Friday to ensure your choice wins. And there might be a new vote on Friday...

IT’S FINALIZATION TIME! PS4 still has a little ways to go to be ready, but PC is closing in on release.

Working on fixing a number of collision issues in maps. One of EV2’s abilities (which you’ll learn more about this week) has forced our hand in polishing some problematic collision areas in our maps, as well as fixing (and in some cases finishing) our out-of-bounds (oob) geometry.

Point being: our ceiling collisions are ready.



And you can expect to see at least 50% less broken world. An example is this building. The roof doesn't look like this currently.



In addition, Dan Haddad and myself are working closely to finish off EV2’s visual effects now that we have our towers in a fun state.

Currently listening to: “Gangsta” by tUnE-yArDs

Winter's not coming in our next level; it's always there. For thousands of years only true defenders have survived in these lands!.

We already made some good progress on the ice themed level but there is a lot to be done yet. Also doing some fixes to some of the campaign levels.

We all know witches ride brooms, but do Gun Witches ride Gun Brooms? Who is to say? Certainly not I.



The Gun Witch is coming along very well. I’m excited to see her in action in the near future. Right now though, we need some laser focus on EV2. She’s so close to done, and we’re getting everything finalized. It’s great to see another hero come to fruition.

I’m in pure bug fixing mode! Doing everything I can to crank through as many bugs as possible!

Series EV2 is really coming together. I want to give a shout out to the team for their hard work. She is definitely the most complex heroine our team has done, and I especially love her VFX. (Good work Brian!) Also, special shout out to the RQA and RPG teams. We’ve given them a number of playtest builds with extremely short deadlines to fill out multiple long surveys so thank you for your help. And thanks to all of our fans who continue to support us as we continue to make improvements to the game.

Looks like Tom forgot to turn it on yesterday. You had one job, Tom!

Anyways, the Mission Madness event is live! Get a new Daily Mission every 8 hours. This weekend's event has been extended until 2PM EDT Tuesday for the trouble. Enjoy!

Love,
The Trendy Team

Looks like Tom forgot to turn it on yesterday. You had one job, Tom!

Anyways, the Mission Madness event is live! Get a new Daily Mission every 8 hours. This weekend's event has been extended until 2PM EDT Tuesday for the trouble. Enjoy!

Love,
The Trendy Team

Update: EV2 is getting some last-minute upgrades, so she's not quite ready for the spotlight. Trailer coming later this week!

Series EV2 lands in May. Are you ready?

This week, keep your eyes peeled for the Series EV2 trailer and release date. Then, on May 13th, tune into the Devstream at 5PM EDT for her complete gameplay reveal!

Here’s what we’ve revealed so far:




EV2 has two extendable node defenses. Node defenses allow you to connect point A to B to C and on and on, letting you create unique setups and patterns. We expect "Hi" will be the tamest thing we see in the Steam screenshots section...

Anyways, her first node defense is the Proton Beam, which zaps enemies as they walk through it, which we hear is quite painful. We wouldn't know. We're not dumb enough to walk in a straight line while refusing to avoid obstacles.




Her second node defense is the Torpedo Beam! A slow-moving torpedo travels along the beam, and when it reaches a node, it'll explode. As the torpedo moves through it each node, it deals more and more damage, so long links are gonna deal more damage than short links. See what we did there?




Her anti-gravity bots are her first ability. Set these bad boys up, and then shoot 'em to make 'em explode. Any nearby bots will also blow up, so you can cluster these in Build Phase preparation and then set 'em off when the big bads start walking through.

Check out the trailer on Tuesday and the Devstream next Friday for her full gameplay reveal!

Update: EV2 is getting some last-minute upgrades, so she's not quite ready for the spotlight. Trailer coming later this week!

Series EV2 lands in May. Are you ready?

This week, keep your eyes peeled for the Series EV2 trailer and release date. Then, on May 13th, tune into the Devstream at 5PM EDT for her complete gameplay reveal!

Here’s what we’ve revealed so far:




EV2 has two extendable node defenses. Node defenses allow you to connect point A to B to C and on and on, letting you create unique setups and patterns. We expect "Hi" will be the tamest thing we see in the Steam screenshots section...

Anyways, her first node defense is the Proton Beam, which zaps enemies as they walk through it, which we hear is quite painful. We wouldn't know. We're not dumb enough to walk in a straight line while refusing to avoid obstacles.




Her second node defense is the Torpedo Beam! A slow-moving torpedo travels along the beam, and when it reaches a node, it'll explode. As the torpedo moves through it each node, it deals more and more damage, so long links are gonna deal more damage than short links. See what we did there?




Her anti-gravity bots are her first ability. Set these bad boys up, and then shoot 'em to make 'em explode. Any nearby bots will also blow up, so you can cluster these in Build Phase preparation and then set 'em off when the big bads start walking through.

Check out the trailer on Tuesday and the Devstream next Friday for her full gameplay reveal!

May the Fourth be with you, Defenders! Here's what we've been working on this week:

You have until May 13th to choose the next map! This vote is between the Crumbled Bulwark and The Buried Bastille:


Crumbled Bulwark
Crumbled Bulwark is a remake of DD1’s Ramparts. A full moon hangs over this fragmented castle fortress. Medium-sized map. Three cores.

VS.


The Buried Bastille
The Buried Bastille is a remake of DD1’s Glitterhelm Caverns. This underground fortress has three wings, each filled with the distinct, lingering smell of death. Large map. Four cores.

Which one would you like first? Vote here and let us know!

With the influence vote in full swing, we are ramping up on an incursion for the map that wins the vote. Gathered some good feedback from the forums about the latest incursion, and the next patch will have some quality of life adjustments to the incursion to make it more accessible.

Ever make a visual effect that you could just stare at for hours?



Made a cool visual behavior setup for one of EV2’s towers to reduce beam noise because of the way in which you can place this tower.

Currently Listening To: Sarah Jaffe - "Defense"

Greetings Defenders!

This week I’m working on making sure our new UIs are split-screen friendly. They should be much easier to read and navigate on the PS4 and PC (when split-screen becomes available). I also updated the Summary Screen to be muuuuuch simpler with a little sizzle to it. The final touches are going in now that sound and art have gotten their hands on it.

For the rest of the week I’ll be working with Brys on the Server Browser.

And now for some pictures!









Testing continues on EV2 and more. Folks that haven’t been contacted yet, should hear back from me soon. We’re bringing in new playtesters in rounds, and the next round will be soon.

Also working on hotfixes and looking at the latest DD1 community beta patch!

We just started work on a new level! Another DD1 remake! As always, the first thing we do is to define the tileset, so we did some visual tests and built up some architecture, and then Jordan came up with this visual reference callout. Simply stunning!



This week we are working on a new map. We are establishing the tileset for the level, which means creating the basic modular pieces such as trims, walls, grounds...

New monthlies are out and everyone should be swimming in new pets on the PS4. The PS4 Inventory Pack is still held up in Sony’s QA, so I’ve been trying to sort that out. I’m looking into the events system as well because we’d like to do more than the triple daily mission refresh, but we have to figure out how to do it efficiently first.

If you look up at Mr. James Reid’s entry, you’ll see that we’re working studio wide on improving the split-screen experience by reducing the number of fullscreen takeovers.

Other than that, we’re working on some server and client stability improvements that should be shipping this week as well.

This week I’m spending a little bit of time polishing EV2's animations and making a few small tweaks. Most of my time, however, is focused on the hero after EV2, the Gun Witch!



I am also working on adding some animated elements to our new maps. So many skeletons hanging from the dungeon ceiling, so little time...

Still chugging away at hotfixes as they come in ( _._) . But more than that, we’re full charge ahead with testing of the current milestone. That means testing on EV2, new costumes, new skill spheres, new passives, new metrics data to track, new weapons, all while making sure all the old stuff still works. I’m getting too old for this.

It puts the lotion on its skin...and by lotion, I mean pixels.

May the Fourth be with you, Defenders! Here's what we've been working on this week:

You have until May 13th to choose the next map! This vote is between the Crumbled Bulwark and The Buried Bastille:


Crumbled Bulwark
Crumbled Bulwark is a remake of DD1’s Ramparts. A full moon hangs over this fragmented castle fortress. Medium-sized map. Three cores.

VS.


The Buried Bastille
The Buried Bastille is a remake of DD1’s Glitterhelm Caverns. This underground fortress has three wings, each filled with the distinct, lingering smell of death. Large map. Four cores.

Which one would you like first? Vote here and let us know!

With the influence vote in full swing, we are ramping up on an incursion for the map that wins the vote. Gathered some good feedback from the forums about the latest incursion, and the next patch will have some quality of life adjustments to the incursion to make it more accessible.

Ever make a visual effect that you could just stare at for hours?



Made a cool visual behavior setup for one of EV2’s towers to reduce beam noise because of the way in which you can place this tower.

Currently Listening To: Sarah Jaffe - "Defense"

Greetings Defenders!

This week I’m working on making sure our new UIs are split-screen friendly. They should be much easier to read and navigate on the PS4 and PC (when split-screen becomes available). I also updated the Summary Screen to be muuuuuch simpler with a little sizzle to it. The final touches are going in now that sound and art have gotten their hands on it.

For the rest of the week I’ll be working with Brys on the Server Browser.

And now for some pictures!









Testing continues on EV2 and more. Folks that haven’t been contacted yet, should hear back from me soon. We’re bringing in new playtesters in rounds, and the next round will be soon.

Also working on hotfixes and looking at the latest DD1 community beta patch!

We just started work on a new level! Another DD1 remake! As always, the first thing we do is to define the tileset, so we did some visual tests and built up some architecture, and then Jordan came up with this visual reference callout. Simply stunning!



This week we are working on a new map. We are establishing the tileset for the level, which means creating the basic modular pieces such as trims, walls, grounds...

New monthlies are out and everyone should be swimming in new pets on the PS4. The PS4 Inventory Pack is still held up in Sony’s QA, so I’ve been trying to sort that out. I’m looking into the events system as well because we’d like to do more than the triple daily mission refresh, but we have to figure out how to do it efficiently first.

If you look up at Mr. James Reid’s entry, you’ll see that we’re working studio wide on improving the split-screen experience by reducing the number of fullscreen takeovers.

Other than that, we’re working on some server and client stability improvements that should be shipping this week as well.

This week I’m spending a little bit of time polishing EV2's animations and making a few small tweaks. Most of my time, however, is focused on the hero after EV2, the Gun Witch!



I am also working on adding some animated elements to our new maps. So many skeletons hanging from the dungeon ceiling, so little time...

Still chugging away at hotfixes as they come in ( _._) . But more than that, we’re full charge ahead with testing of the current milestone. That means testing on EV2, new costumes, new skill spheres, new passives, new metrics data to track, new weapons, all while making sure all the old stuff still works. I’m getting too old for this.

It puts the lotion on its skin...and by lotion, I mean pixels.

• Requirements:
  
  • Slow 100,000 Enemies
    
  • Knockup or Stun 10,000 Enemies
    
  • Provoke 1,000 Enemies
• Rewards:
  
  • Pet: Dragolich Variant
    
  • Gold: 300,000 Gold
    
  • Medals: 2,000 Defender Medals
    
  • Title: Mesmerizing

• Made a code change to hero hotswapping to improve server stability.
  
• Added a 1 second Build Phase cooldown to hero hotswapping to improve server stability.
  
• Removed “Brought Hero Into Combat” announcer text to improve our sanity.
  
• Pet rerolls should no longer give duplicate empowerment stats.
  
• Skill Spheres should now properly update if a player changes a Sphere and then swaps to another hero.
  
• UI will now update to reflect recent actions -- for example, if you leave a party, the “Leave Party” button will now properly disappear.

• Requirements:
  
  • Slow 100,000 Enemies
    
  • Knockup or Stun 10,000 Enemies
    
  • Provoke 1,000 Enemies
• Rewards:
  
  • Pet: Dragolich Variant
    
  • Gold: 300,000 Gold
    
  • Medals: 2,000 Defender Medals
    
  • Title: Mesmerizing

• Made a code change to hero hotswapping to improve server stability.
  
• Added a 1 second Build Phase cooldown to hero hotswapping to improve server stability.
  
• Removed “Brought Hero Into Combat” announcer text to improve our sanity.
  
• Pet rerolls should no longer give duplicate empowerment stats.
  
• Skill Spheres should now properly update if a player changes a Sphere and then swaps to another hero.
  
• UI will now update to reflect recent actions -- for example, if you leave a party, the “Leave Party” button will now properly disappear.