https://youtu.be/kH_DBnb4wyU
Hi everyone !

Today is a special day for us, as it marks the one-year anniversary of Wolcen’s Early Access launch.
To celebrate, we’ll take a look back at the origins of Wolcen, up to all the content that has been added to this point. We’ll then take a peek at the future of the game.
But first, let’s take a trip down memory lane.

Wolcen, or Umbra as it was known at that time, started as a mod for the original Crysis, that gave users the tools to develop RPGs on CryEngine. Our CEO Daniel Dolui work for years on this project, with the goal of creating something reminiscent of the look and feel of Diablo 2, but made with modern technology. You can still find videos of this project on youtube, like this one or this one.

As time went on, more people shared Daniel’s vision and joined the project, allowing the first working prototype see the light of day.

2 years after, with a team of 4, a second prototype was ready to be presented at GDC 2015. It already featured many skills, armors pieces, impressive particle effects and a randomly generated dungeon.
The prototype caught the attention of hack and slash enthusiasts, and word spread of a next-gen, class-free hack and slash being developed.
The very small team realized that fully realizing their vision would require expanding the scope of the project in a significant way.

In may 2015, the Kickstarter campaign was launched and was a huge success, as we received almost twice the amount of funds. More than 11000 people gave us their trust, even though we weren’t big names, so the four of us left our bedroom to create our game studio and our licence. Wolcen studio was born.

In march 2016, Wolcen was launched into Early Access, allowing us to build upon our relationship with the community.


Since the Early Access launch and up to this point, most of the game’s systems and UI elements have been refactored and overhauled to build a better game.
Key gameplay features have been added, like the Passive Skill Tree, Resource Opposition System, housing, dodge-rolling, new enemies, weapon-combos, player storage, character customization and more.
This year alone, our programmers added 3 590 962 lines of code to the game, and more than 1500 lines of changelog have been published by our now eleven-man team.


Update 0.4 will include a new main menu and the Active Skill Tree system, allowing players to customize the way their spells work.
With online storage of characters also comes the daily dungeon, with leaderboards.
You can find more informations about these features in our latest devblog


So, what can you expect in the coming year ?
With a large part of the major gameplay features implemented, work on both single and multiplayer content is continuing at increased speeds. New gameplay features will still come regularly, as well as new monsters and their associated behaviors.
Apocalyptic Forms are coming soon, and work on the dungeon challenge mode is advancing at a rapid pace.
But that’s not all; here’s a list of the feature that are coming to wolcen :

• Crafting
  
• Multiplayer Co-op
  
• Arena mode
  
• A brand new quest system with a new UI, with the first act of the game and introduce in-game cinematics
  
• Minions / Companions
  
• New sections of the Passive Skill Tree
  
• New skills in the Active Skill Tree
  
• Tons of new monsters, bosses and AI behaviors
  
• New weapons, armors and items
  
• Linux support
  
• Hardcore mode
  
• Gamepad support
  
• Steam achievements
  
• A new musical score

More importantly, we have been working on a completely revamped open world and its quest line for months. This new game world will come in the 0.5 update, and will be your first taste Wolcen’s single-player campaign.
There is a new world out there, and we can’t wait for you to explore it !




Thank you so much for your support ! We are confident 2017 will be a fantastic year for Wolcen, and you’ll have as much fun playing it as we have developing it !

Cheers!
Wolcen Studio

https://youtu.be/kH_DBnb4wyU
Hi everyone !

Today is a special day for us, as it marks the one-year anniversary of Wolcen’s Early Access launch.
To celebrate, we’ll take a look back at the origins of Wolcen, up to all the content that has been added to this point. We’ll then take a peek at the future of the game.
But first, let’s take a trip down memory lane.

Wolcen, or Umbra as it was known at that time, started as a mod for the original Crysis, that gave users the tools to develop RPGs on CryEngine. Our CEO Daniel Dolui work for years on this project, with the goal of creating something reminiscent of the look and feel of Diablo 2, but made with modern technology. You can still find videos of this project on youtube, like this one or this one.

As time went on, more people shared Daniel’s vision and joined the project, allowing the first working prototype see the light of day.

2 years after, with a team of 4, a second prototype was ready to be presented at GDC 2015. It already featured many skills, armors pieces, impressive particle effects and a randomly generated dungeon.
The prototype caught the attention of hack and slash enthusiasts, and word spread of a next-gen, class-free hack and slash being developed.
The very small team realized that fully realizing their vision would require expanding the scope of the project in a significant way.

In may 2015, the Kickstarter campaign was launched and was a huge success, as we received almost twice the amount of funds. More than 11000 people gave us their trust, even though we weren’t big names, so the four of us left our bedroom to create our game studio and our licence. Wolcen studio was born.

In march 2016, Wolcen was launched into Early Access, allowing us to build upon our relationship with the community.


Since the Early Access launch and up to this point, most of the game’s systems and UI elements have been refactored and overhauled to build a better game.
Key gameplay features have been added, like the Passive Skill Tree, Resource Opposition System, housing, dodge-rolling, new enemies, weapon-combos, player storage, character customization and more.
This year alone, our programmers added 3 590 962 lines of code to the game, and more than 1500 lines of changelog have been published by our now eleven-man team.


Update 0.4 will include a new main menu and the Active Skill Tree system, allowing players to customize the way their spells work.
With online storage of characters also comes the daily dungeon, with leaderboards.
You can find more informations about these features in our latest devblog


So, what can you expect in the coming year ?
With a large part of the major gameplay features implemented, work on both single and multiplayer content is continuing at increased speeds. New gameplay features will still come regularly, as well as new monsters and their associated behaviors.
Apocalyptic Forms are coming soon, and work on the dungeon challenge mode is advancing at a rapid pace.
But that’s not all; here’s a list of the feature that are coming to wolcen :

• Crafting
  
• Multiplayer Co-op
  
• Arena mode
  
• A brand new quest system with a new UI, with the first act of the game and introduce in-game cinematics
  
• Minions / Companions
  
• New sections of the Passive Skill Tree
  
• New skills in the Active Skill Tree
  
• Tons of new monsters, bosses and AI behaviors
  
• New weapons, armors and items
  
• Linux support
  
• Hardcore mode
  
• Gamepad support
  
• Steam achievements
  
• A new musical score

More importantly, we have been working on a completely revamped open world and its quest line for months. This new game world will come in the 0.5 update, and will be your first taste Wolcen’s single-player campaign.
There is a new world out there, and we can’t wait for you to explore it !




Thank you so much for your support ! We are confident 2017 will be a fantastic year for Wolcen, and you’ll have as much fun playing it as we have developing it !

Cheers!
Wolcen Studio

Hi everyone !

Update 0.4.0 has been deployed on the experimental branch !

You can access the experimental branch by right clicking on Wolcen in your library, navigate to the "Betas" tab and select "experimental" from the combo box.
WARNING: Because of deep changes brought to the save files and the game in general, 0.4.0 wipes your saves. We apologize for the inconvenience.



With this update, we are introducing the “online mode”. In this mode, your save data (character, chest, house…) will be stored on our servers. You can still play in offline mode (with everything stored on your harddrive and no internet connection required) by clicking the “switch to offline” button on the main menu.
Multiplayer co-op is not available yet but online mode is a first step in its direction.



With online mode and 0.4.0, we are also introducing the daily dungeon: a daily randomly generated dungeon shared by every players. The daily dungeon is bigger than the random dungeon you are used to and should offer more challenge with more elite enemies and a boss at the end you have to kill to finish the dungeon. Furthermore, the daily dungeon is timed and offer you a way to compete with your friend for who finishes the dungeon the fastest.
You can access the daily dungeon by talking to Don John in Amarth. You will also find the leaderboard next to him.
The daily dungeon is only accessible in online mode.



With 0.4.0 also comes the new active skill tree which offers you customization options for each and every skills like more range, more damages, cost reduction…
However, the skill tree we are releasing on the experimental branch isn’t complete. Some skill had to be removed and some skill trees don’t have all their variant up to level 25. But we still wanted to get it out with experimental to give you a preview of those features and get your first impressions. More skills and variants will come with 0.4.0 stable release.

Finally, with this update comes a lot of bug fixes, optimization, balancing… and a lot more ! We will publish the complete patch note in a few days once we are satisfied with 0.4.0 stability and release it on stable branch.

Thank you for your continuous support ! We hope you’ll enjoy this patch !

WARNING: The GI option (SVOGI) is temporarily disabled during the experimental release due to technical issues.

Hi everyone !

Update 0.4.0 has been deployed on the experimental branch !

You can access the experimental branch by right clicking on Wolcen in your library, navigate to the "Betas" tab and select "experimental" from the combo box.
WARNING: Because of deep changes brought to the save files and the game in general, 0.4.0 wipes your saves. We apologize for the inconvenience.



With this update, we are introducing the “online mode”. In this mode, your save data (character, chest, house…) will be stored on our servers. You can still play in offline mode (with everything stored on your harddrive and no internet connection required) by clicking the “switch to offline” button on the main menu.
Multiplayer co-op is not available yet but online mode is a first step in its direction.



With online mode and 0.4.0, we are also introducing the daily dungeon: a daily randomly generated dungeon shared by every players. The daily dungeon is bigger than the random dungeon you are used to and should offer more challenge with more elite enemies and a boss at the end you have to kill to finish the dungeon. Furthermore, the daily dungeon is timed and offer you a way to compete with your friend for who finishes the dungeon the fastest.
You can access the daily dungeon by talking to Don John in Amarth. You will also find the leaderboard next to him.
The daily dungeon is only accessible in online mode.



With 0.4.0 also comes the new active skill tree which offers you customization options for each and every skills like more range, more damages, cost reduction…
However, the skill tree we are releasing on the experimental branch isn’t complete. Some skill had to be removed and some skill trees don’t have all their variant up to level 25. But we still wanted to get it out with experimental to give you a preview of those features and get your first impressions. More skills and variants will come with 0.4.0 stable release.

Finally, with this update comes a lot of bug fixes, optimization, balancing… and a lot more ! We will publish the complete patch note in a few days once we are satisfied with 0.4.0 stability and release it on stable branch.

Thank you for your continuous support ! We hope you’ll enjoy this patch !

WARNING: The GI option (SVOGI) is temporarily disabled during the experimental release due to technical issues.

Hi everyone !

With update 0.4 being our next big milestone, we want to share a preview of the upcoming changes this update brings.

This week, meet the new Active Skills Tree !

https://youtu.be/wy51HlH3Phk

As you can see in the video, it is possible to level-up a skill to level 25. Skill that are slotted in your action bar will receive a portion of your experience points, and their characteristics will improve every time they gain a level.
Every five levels however, you’ll be able to choose between one of two skill variants. These will impact the way a skill functions and can dramatically improve a skill’s efficiency.
Some variants will require that your character have the right combination of attribute points in order to be unlocked.
Choose your build wisely ! You can however change between variants at any time, thus making on-the-fly tweaks to a skill possible.

Every spell will feature a full Active Skill Tree with ten unlockable variants.

To help you keep track of the enhancements applied to your skills, we remade the entire Skills UI with working tooltips that can display every bit of relevant information about a skill.

That is all for this week, stay tuned for the next article where we’ll reveal more features of update 0.4 !

Hi everyone !

With update 0.4 being our next big milestone, we want to share a preview of the upcoming changes this update brings.

This week, meet the new Active Skills Tree !

https://youtu.be/wy51HlH3Phk

As you can see in the video, it is possible to level-up a skill to level 25. Skill that are slotted in your action bar will receive a portion of your experience points, and their characteristics will improve every time they gain a level.
Every five levels however, you’ll be able to choose between one of two skill variants. These will impact the way a skill functions and can dramatically improve a skill’s efficiency.
Some variants will require that your character have the right combination of attribute points in order to be unlocked.
Choose your build wisely ! You can however change between variants at any time, thus making on-the-fly tweaks to a skill possible.

Every spell will feature a full Active Skill Tree with ten unlockable variants.

To help you keep track of the enhancements applied to your skills, we remade the entire Skills UI with working tooltips that can display every bit of relevant information about a skill.

That is all for this week, stay tuned for the next article where we’ll reveal more features of update 0.4 !

Hi everyone !



Update 0.3.7 has been deployed ! A new monster is awaiting in the grass fields, the mighty Skull Crusher. We’ve already revealed some of his moves in a previous devblog and you can now fight against him if you wish to test your skills.

https://youtu.be/_tiQZNxqCLM

To help you turn the tide in your favor, we’ve added three new sets of armor to the game : two light and a medium armor set. Proper affixes should roll on those new armor types, so players can better gear their characters according to their playstyle.





We also improved the Orc Charger. His charge is now smoother, and we’ll fall to the ground when hitting a wall.

This should be the last update before our next big milestone, update 0.4.0, which will introduce new major mechanics and new content. A lot of background work has been done in the past weeks in order to prepare for this huge update, so expect changes in overall balance and feel of the game.

This is the changelog for update 0.3.7, enjoy !

VISUALS

• New visual effect for the Damage Return effect on enemies.

AUDIO

• New sound effects for the Skullcrusher.
  
• Improved the way the sound listener moves between the player and the camera.
  
• Improved sound Spatialization.

ENVIRONMENT

• A portal now brings to the new boss.
  
• The Inn Keeper is now closer to the merchant.

CHARACTERS

• New Skullcrusher monster.

GAMEPLAY

• Ranged gameplay and mouse targetting has been improved
  
• Warrior Artificial Intelligence has been improved. Warriors enemies now try to surround the player.
  
• Orc footmen may now try to escape if their health is too low
  
• New Ranger Medium armor.
  
• New Apprentice light armor.
  
• New Thief light armor.
  
• The Skullcrusher, a big ogre wielding a gigantic maul has been added. You can find him in the grass fields near dhur.
  
• Skull Crushers use up to 4 different type of skills : Mace Attack, Expulse Blow, Healing, Charge and Speed Buff.
  
• Improved Orc Charger. The Charger will now turn during his charge and can be knocked down if he hits an obstacle.
  
• Orc charger particle effects improved
  
• Monsters with boss ranks have a higher chance to drop magical and rare items.
  
• NightStalkers have been replaced by enraged zombies.
  
• Constitution Points now give an additional 0.2% health per point.
  
• Elite monsters like the ghoul or the skullcrusher now drop more loot.
  
• Monsters that spawn at night time have a high chance of dropping more loot.
  
• The Ghoul can now be interrupted, especially when she is casting a skill.
  
• The Ghoul’s jump attack has a slightly higher cooldown, making her more manageable for melee characters.
  
• The king of the ogres now stands in the heavens.
  
• New "Extra Damage" Boss Modifier.
  
• Fixed: Some items stats weren’t properly saved, resulting in lower item’s stats after dying/exiting and reloading your character.
  
• Several new enemies can trigger Pulverize effect (gore explosion)
  
• Health bar placement improved (tall enemies had their health bar located too low)

AFFIXES

• Default Affixes on items should not be overridden anymore.

ACTIVE SKILLS

• Fixed: Tome of Deep Strike had a very low drop rate.
  
• Warcry particle has been improved.

PASSIVE SKILLS

Trickster:
• Modified: Lethal Strikes now grants 3% increased damage per stack and can stack up to 10. It now only ticks when in combat mode and stacks are reset when out of combat.
  
• Modified: Lethal Strike Extended now grants 1% additional damage and increases the maximum of stacks to 20.

Hi everyone !



Update 0.3.7 has been deployed ! A new monster is awaiting in the grass fields, the mighty Skull Crusher. We’ve already revealed some of his moves in a previous devblog and you can now fight against him if you wish to test your skills.

https://youtu.be/_tiQZNxqCLM

To help you turn the tide in your favor, we’ve added three new sets of armor to the game : two light and a medium armor set. Proper affixes should roll on those new armor types, so players can better gear their characters according to their playstyle.





We also improved the Orc Charger. His charge is now smoother, and we’ll fall to the ground when hitting a wall.

This should be the last update before our next big milestone, update 0.4.0, which will introduce new major mechanics and new content. A lot of background work has been done in the past weeks in order to prepare for this huge update, so expect changes in overall balance and feel of the game.

This is the changelog for update 0.3.7, enjoy !

VISUALS

• New visual effect for the Damage Return effect on enemies.

AUDIO

• New sound effects for the Skullcrusher.
  
• Improved the way the sound listener moves between the player and the camera.
  
• Improved sound Spatialization.

ENVIRONMENT

• A portal now brings to the new boss.
  
• The Inn Keeper is now closer to the merchant.

CHARACTERS

• New Skullcrusher monster.

GAMEPLAY

• Ranged gameplay and mouse targetting has been improved
  
• Warrior Artificial Intelligence has been improved. Warriors enemies now try to surround the player.
  
• Orc footmen may now try to escape if their health is too low
  
• New Ranger Medium armor.
  
• New Apprentice light armor.
  
• New Thief light armor.
  
• The Skullcrusher, a big ogre wielding a gigantic maul has been added. You can find him in the grass fields near dhur.
  
• Skull Crushers use up to 4 different type of skills : Mace Attack, Expulse Blow, Healing, Charge and Speed Buff.
  
• Improved Orc Charger. The Charger will now turn during his charge and can be knocked down if he hits an obstacle.
  
• Orc charger particle effects improved
  
• Monsters with boss ranks have a higher chance to drop magical and rare items.
  
• NightStalkers have been replaced by enraged zombies.
  
• Constitution Points now give an additional 0.2% health per point.
  
• Elite monsters like the ghoul or the skullcrusher now drop more loot.
  
• Monsters that spawn at night time have a high chance of dropping more loot.
  
• The Ghoul can now be interrupted, especially when she is casting a skill.
  
• The Ghoul’s jump attack has a slightly higher cooldown, making her more manageable for melee characters.
  
• The king of the ogres now stands in the heavens.
  
• New "Extra Damage" Boss Modifier.
  
• Fixed: Some items stats weren’t properly saved, resulting in lower item’s stats after dying/exiting and reloading your character.
  
• Several new enemies can trigger Pulverize effect (gore explosion)
  
• Health bar placement improved (tall enemies had their health bar located too low)

AFFIXES

• Default Affixes on items should not be overridden anymore.

ACTIVE SKILLS

• Fixed: Tome of Deep Strike had a very low drop rate.
  
• Warcry particle has been improved.

PASSIVE SKILLS

Trickster:
• Modified: Lethal Strikes now grants 3% increased damage per stack and can stack up to 10. It now only ticks when in combat mode and stacks are reset when out of combat.
  
• Modified: Lethal Strike Extended now grants 1% additional damage and increases the maximum of stacks to 20.

Hello everyone,

We just updated the game to correct some issues from 0.3.6.
Thanks again to everyone who reported these bugs, we are working hard to fix as many as possible!

CHANGELOG:

GENERAL:
* Fixed: negative damages bug

VISUALS:
* Fixed: Removed Poison Phial VFX on staves.

GAMEPLAY:
* Fixed: Random affixes were sometimes overriding default affixes.
* Fixed: Default affixes weren’t stacked when wielding two identical items.
* Fixed: A mage Staff had incorrect damage values.

AFFIXES:
* Fixed: The block chance affix wasn’t working properly.
* Fixed: The cooldown reduction affix on potions added cooldown instead of reducing it.

ACTIVE SKILLS:
* Fixed: Explosive Wave had no Rage cost

Hello everyone,

We just updated the game to correct some issues from 0.3.6.
Thanks again to everyone who reported these bugs, we are working hard to fix as many as possible!

CHANGELOG:

GENERAL:
* Fixed: negative damages bug

VISUALS:
* Fixed: Removed Poison Phial VFX on staves.

GAMEPLAY:
* Fixed: Random affixes were sometimes overriding default affixes.
* Fixed: Default affixes weren’t stacked when wielding two identical items.
* Fixed: A mage Staff had incorrect damage values.

AFFIXES:
* Fixed: The block chance affix wasn’t working properly.
* Fixed: The cooldown reduction affix on potions added cooldown instead of reducing it.

ACTIVE SKILLS:
* Fixed: Explosive Wave had no Rage cost