Warriors! After 5 years of work, and 15 months in early access, ELDERBORN has finally launched on Steam. Your amazing reaction has given our little studio a great boost! We feel a little overwhelmed by all the praise coming from you guys. But not too overwhelmed not to pay close attention to all the feedback and criticism. If Early Access thought us something, than - more than anything else - is to listen to your players.

We managed to pull of the release without any critical bugs, but there are some issues that we know need fixing. We are working on fixing a number of some major, minor, as many of minuscule bugs that we can track (with no small help from you guys - thank you). We will deliver the first patch on February 20th.

At the same time, we're also closely following everything you say about the design and balance of ELDERBORN. While we stand by our basic concepts and the general feel of the game, we know that it will benefit from further polishing and balancing. Things were meant to be challenging, but not annoying. Over-the-top, but not goofy. We hear you! We evaluate everything you tell us and we're on it. 2-3 weeks after the bug-fix patch, we'll be releasing another, larger patch addressing many of your concerns, further improving the gameplay, and bringing about some quality-of-life improvements to ELDERBORN.


The reception ELDERBORN, as well as the sales, put our studio, Hyperstrange, in a position to make some more far-reaching plans. A small indie team trying to deliver an ambitious project - and a 3D action game is always such - almost unavoidably faces some difficult choices. The game you got is as awesome and epic as we could deliver, but not as awesome and epic as the one we imagined. We've put our heart and soul into the world of ELDERBORN and now, that it has won you over, it deserves to be expanded.

Following the aforementioned patches, we'll start looking into ways we can improve and expand the game further. We know we're knocking on the doors of action game development Valhalla, but we haven't yet earned our places at the table alongside Romero and Carmac just yet. There's even more epic, Metal AF, over-the-top fun to be infused into ELDERBORN, an we have every intention of doing so.

This is just a stop in our journey. Much is yet to come!


The Hyperstrange Team

Yes, there is an actual story behind all the gory mayhem. With the full release, we're adding a new story introduction (that you can see below and in the game's Steam profile), cut-scenes filling you in on the details of your quest, and a lot of in-game lore, that can be accessed by exploring and interacting with the environment of the game and unlocked in the game's Codex. The intro and the cut-scenes come in two different versions, depending if you select the female, or the male champion.

The story is as over-the-top as the rest of the game. Think of a 1980s/1990s VHS fantasy movie you've came across in the dark and dusty corner of your local Blockbuster. See for yourself!





WARRIORS! Please allow us to make the plea once again:

We've put 5 years of our lives into ELDERBORN and we need your help to make it a successful release. If you are planning to get the game, it would be wonderful if you did that within the first 24 hours of the release. This way Steam will notice, that people want to play ELDERBORN and will consider giving us a little more valuable exposure.

Please also consider helping us out a bit to gain more visibility. Follow our Twitter or Facebook and consider sharing our posts. At this time - we'd appreciate you sharing the ones featuring our new trailer ([[url=https://twitter.com/ELDERBORNgame/status/1218545804316680192]ELDERBORN Trailer on Twitter[/url]] [[url=https://www.facebook.com/elderborn/posts/2521779648094850]ELDERBORN Trailer on Facebook[/url]]; you can also see it in the store page now!). Tell your friends about the Metal AF experience that will let them unleash their inner barbarian!

If you happen to be a content creator of any sorts - a streamer, youtuber, blogger - or part of the gaming media, please reach out to us for a review copy of the game. We will to try to reach you on our own, but shooting us an email at elderborn@hyperstrange.com will greatly speed up that process.

The next time you hear from us here, we won't be an Early Access title any longer.


Yours, The HYPERSTRANGE Team

Everyone of us has heard the call, people of True Metal, ready to stand tall in the face of enemy. Make no mistake - the hour of trial is upon us all! In less than two days ELDERBORN comes out of Early Access, and there will be much blood and gore and fury and glory... AND METAL!

The Digital OST gets an upgrade upon the game's full release. With the new versions of some tracks and the addition of some new, the album runtime will now total to a monumental 53 minutes! Here's a new OST clip to celebrate the news!



If you are wondering what else will change in ELDERBORN on January 30, please refer to the Changelog Highlights in the previous blog post.



WARRIORS! Please allow us to make the plea once again:

We've put 5 years of our lives into ELDERBORN and we need your help to make it a successful release. If you enjoy the game and appreciate what we're doing with it, please consider helping us out a bit to gain more visibility. Follow our Twitter or Facebook and consider sharing our posts. At this time - we'd appreciate you sharing the ones featuring our new trailer ([[url=https://twitter.com/ELDERBORNgame/status/1218545804316680192]ELDERBORN Trailer on Twitter[/url]] [[url=https://www.facebook.com/elderborn/posts/2521779648094850]ELDERBORN Trailer on Facebook[/url]]; you can also see it in the store page now!). Tell your friends about the Metal AF experience that will let them unleash their inner barbarian!

If you happen to be a content creator of any sorts - a streamer, youtuber, blogger - or part of the gaming media, please reach out to us for a review copy of the game. We will to try to reach you on our own, but shooting us an email at elderborn@hyperstrange.com will greatly speed up that process!

We'll see you all next week, on the other side of Early Access!


Yours, The HYPERSTRANGE Team

By this time next week, you will stand in the arena to face trial by combat, prove your worth, and set off to your holy quest to conquer the dangers and mysteries of the ancient and cursed city of Jurmum! ELDERBORN is coming out of Early Access on January 30. Here is what you need to know.



15 months of Early Access with awesome player feedback gave us the chance to expand and polish our vision. Current Early Access version, last updated in October 2019, is now best treated as an extensive demo of the final version of ELDERBORN. If you just purchased it - please keep in mind that taking it for a spin now is fun, but you don't want to invest a lot of your time in the game. Because it WILL CHANGE A LOT, and - for the final time - the save files will be wiped. As annoying as that might be - please understand, that the final version of ELDERBORN that comes on Jan 30 will be a lot like a whole new game. Please read on!

Full release changelog highlights:

What was added?

• Two new locations - tutorial dungeon, and endgame - atop of the existing Catacombs and City
  
• New animated story intro and cut-scenes in two versions (see next bulletpoints!)
  
• New, more buffed-out character models (plural! see next point!)
  
• The option to choose your character - a male- or female-appearing (this is reflected in the cut-scenes)
  
• The option to choose your preferred difficulty level at the beginning of the game, and change it later if you find it too challenging or not challenging enough (you can do it at any time and it won't affect challenge progression or your eligibility for achievements)
  
• Lore codex detailing the story background, weapons, enemies, and more
  
• A new, second boss fight in the City area
  
• In-game challenges that grant you various bonuses upon completion
  
• A heroic-fantasy storyline to follow throughout the game
  
• New steam achievements
  
• Full controller support
  
• 5 new weapons
  
• New music tracks

What was improved?

• The user interface has been completely re-worked, both all menu screens, as well as the HUD
  
• The game optimization has been greatly improved and it should run much smoother on most machines within the suggested specs
  
• Complete re-balance of the player, weapon, and enemy stats
  
• Character progression curve was re-balanced as well
  
• Enemy combat patterns and animations
  
• Weapon stats and variance - each of the 11 weapons offers a distinctive playstyle now - check the in-game weapons codex to find out about the different damage types and special properties
  
• You master weapons by using them in combat to unlock more weapon lore and bonuses
  
• You learn about enemies by fighting them and you unlock more lore and learn about their vulnerabilities
  
• The City location has been greatly polished and spruced up with new special effects and more apparent goals
  
• The tower-top mini-boss fights have been reworked completely from the ground up
  
• More spawn points have been added to reduce back-tracking in case of character death
  
• The missing SFX have been added and the existing ones have been improved
  
• The save system back-end has been changed to avoid savegame errors
  
• A lot of bug-fixes and quality-of-life tweaks have been made

This list does not include all of the major, minor, and invisible changes that the Hyperstrange team put in ELDERBORN over the course of the last ~4 months since the last update. But it should give you an idea what to expect from the final game.



WARRIORS! The game that we set out to make 5 years ago as a two-person team has evolved into something much bigger, better, and more badass (sorry! had to go there) than we would have imagined. We're still a small team (under 10 people, not counting voice talents, supporting artists, and other freelancers). ELDERBORN is an ambitious indie game, but an indie game nonetheless! We don't have the monetary leverage in marketing of a A-tier title.

If you enjoy the game and appreciate what we're doing with it, please consider helping us out a bit to gain more visibility. Follow our Twitter or Facebook and consider sharing our posts. At this time - we'd appreciate you sharing the ones featuring our new trailer ([[url=https://twitter.com/ELDERBORNgame/status/1218545804316680192]ELDERBORN Trailer on Twitter[/url]] [[url=https://www.facebook.com/elderborn/posts/2521779648094850]ELDERBORN Trailer on Facebook[/url]]; you can also see it in the store page now!). Tell your friends about the Metal AF experience that will let them unleash their inner barbarian!

If you happen to be a content creator of any sorts - a streamer, youtuber, blogger - or part of the gaming media, please reach out to us for a review copy of the game. We will to try to reach you on our own, but shooting us an email at elderborn@hyperstrange.com will greatly speed up that process!

We'll see you all next week, on the other side of Early Access!

Stay metal, Warriors!

Yours, The HYPERSTRANGE Team

Warriors! Save the date: Thursday, January 30, 2020 will mark the most important milestone in ELDERBORN’s development - the full release. Bringing the game out of Steam Early Access we’ll be expanding content and adding final polish to our our souls-lite FPP melee title:

The third and final gameplay location will be added, providing closure to the story

• A set of new cut-scenes will replace the current ones (yay, a new story intro!)
  
• New weapons will be added to your arsenal
  
• A lot more unlockable codex entries will give you new insight to the game's lore
  
• More music will be introduced (also to appear in the digital soundtrack DLC)
  
• Gameplay balancing and tweaks - majorly based on your feedback!
  
• & more!

This has been an amazing ride for a small indie team such as ourselves, but we’re almost at our destination. ELDERBORN has become a very different game than the one we originally envisioned - a much better one, thanks to the insight of our players. The pressure of over a year in Early Access was a substantial strain to our crew, but come January, we’ll be releasing the full version of our game confident of its benefits.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/727850/ELDERBORN/

Let’s stay in touch until then! Join our Discord server, follow us on Twitter and Facebook - lots of cool stuff still ahead of us, leading up to the release.

Yours,
The HYPERSTRANGE Team

Warriors! After a long journey full of challenging side quests and adventure, ELDERBORN is in the final stretch of development. We'll be announcing the date of our full release in a few dayss, but first things first. Let’s talk about all the awesome new things happening to the game on Steam today!


We're adding a bunch of digital goodies to ELDERBORN on Steam. Music buffs will be happy to learn that this includes the full game OST - a 10-track album composed by Kacper Kajzerski. Kacper uses the exotic sound of the Armenian duduk and Turkish oud or zurna, among other instruments, to capture the uniqueness of the game’s setting. The music, however, remains true to the modern heavy metal form, with all its defining characteristics. A touch of electronic beats complete the aeclectic, unmistakable mixture that defines the sound of ELDERBORN.




The second piece of digital bonus content is an artbook we’ve prepared for you, so you can see the amazingly varied collection of concept arts that helped us to put the vision of ELDERBORN together, and learn a little bit more of the game’s lore. All this you get in the $19.77 edition, that from this day forth shall be known as ELDERBORN - Metal AF Edition. On top of our utmost gratitude, everyone who has bought the game in Early Access up to this date gets a free upgrade to this deluxe version.


Today, we are introducing a second, basic purchase option for ELDERBORN. Priced at $14.99, the standard edition includes the game and the game only. When we released ELDERBORN into Steam Early Access a bit over one year ago, some external factors dictated both the price point and the formula of the release. Today, being in full control of our game, we want to make sure to give everyone the right option to get into ELDERBORN. This basic option gets you the complete game, and both editions will be equally supported. The only thing you’ll be missing out on in this option, are the digital goodies - the artbook and the soundtrack. But hey, if you decide you love the game - you can always get them separately. Why don't you listen to the first track and see if that helps you decide!




As we progress towards release, ELDERBORN becomes more stable, optimized, and QA tested on more systems. At this point, we feel confident enough to substantially lower the system requirements presented on the Steam store profile. In fact - we did this a while ago, but we’re bringing it up in case it escaped your attention. As of now, we’re confident that a rig equipped with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M, Intel Core i5-7500, and 4GB RAM is enough to run ELDERBORN comfortably. That said - the game requires to be played in 40FPS or more to be what we want it to be. If your machine can’t pull it off - consider lowering the resolution in favor of more FPS.

The gates of Jurmum, the ancient, mysterious city are now open. ELDERBORN, the metal melee slash `em up, receives its biggest content update yet. The Sun will shine on the brave, once more. Those of you who braved the many dangers of the catacombs, faced the titanic guardian Janus, and survived, can now venture forth into the forlorn streets, squares, and back alleys of the cursed town. This new location greatly expands the playtime and introduces a whole new selection of enemies, secrets, and puzzles.

On top of the new location this update also introduces a brand new graphical user interface, rebalances and adds some polish to the combat, makes the enemies more responsive, and improves the overall player experience by a multitude of smaller and larger tweaks, fixes, and additions.



Yet again, ELDERBORN has changed a lot, as games in early access often do. The game is best enjoyed from the very beginning, so once again - we apologize, but your old save files won't work. But it’s for the best - you’ll see! A lot of the changes are the direct result of the feedback we’ve been getting from you - our fantastic community of players. Thank you, and please keep it coming! With all the new content we’re very anxious to hear from you, so let us know how are you enjoying the first instalment of the city gameplay in this “Call of Jurmum” update.

With the fully-playable city location, we are drawing near the conclusion of our story. Solving the mystery of Jurmum paves the road to ELDERBORN’s grand finale. We’ll tell you more about it soon. For now, answer the Call of Jurmum, warriors! Enjoy the update!

• A new stage - the city of Jurmum - has been added to the game with all-new locations, enemies, puzzles, and mini-boss fights
  
• DURING FIGHT Npc positioning is a bit less random. They act less like a mob now.
  
• Damage, hit points and experience values significantly changed across all types of enemies.
  
• The flow of the Janus boss battle has been re-designed - Janus will talk to the player during the fight
  
• New, more buffed character hands model, to make all those hammer swings look more awesome
  
• Mummy behavior changed, it’s more aggressive now.
  
• Small scorpions are weaker but also much faster.
  
• Stone scorpions heal themselves during fight when their hit points reach a certain threshold
  
• Lava scorpions leave pools of fire after they die.
  
• Drowner behavior changed, it’s less aggressive.
  
• NEW NPC: Albino Drowner – stronger version of the drowner with an additional ranged attack
  
• NEW NPC: Berserker – Hight damage and durability, a foe to be feared.
  
• NEW NPC: Stalker – An npc that attacks only when surrounded by allies.
  
• NEW NPC: Firestarter – Fire bomb hurling enemy.
  
• NEW NPC: Assassin – Npc with the ability to teleport behind players back.
  
• NEW NPC: Golden Army Soldier – Golden army solider armed with a two handed sword. All attack zero defense.
  
• NEW NPC: Golden Army Man at Arms – Golden Army Soldier with a spear and an ability to charge.
  
• NEW NPC: Golden Army Artillery – Golden Army Soldier with a strange weapon.
  
• NEW NPC: Golden Army Shieldbearer – Golden Army Soldier with a small shield, they protect the artillery.
  
• NEW NPC: Walking Corpse – Feral among the ferals. The least human of Jurmum citizens.
  
• NEW NPC: Priest – The clergy of Jurmum with the ability to manipulate the elements.
  
• Added a lot of consistency to the combat system. Everything should feel more balanced now.
  
• The user interface has been re-designed (again!), including a brand-new HUD
  
• New skill and stats screen has been added
  
• Added a “Codex” screen where the player can review tutorials, and learn more about the game’s lore, locations, weapons, items, and enemies Added proper Character sheet to the game
  
• The time needed to complete the action of picking up lost sou… essence has been greatly reduced
  
• New music tracks have been introduced to the game and the system handling music and sound effects has been reworked from scratch.
  
• New mid-intro has been added to bridge the Catacombs (dungeon) and Jurmum (city) stages
  
• Game optimization and stability has been greatly improved

To celebrate this milestone we're putting the game on a week-long -20% discount tomorrow, at 10:00am PST! If you've been eyeing ELDERBORN for some time now, this is the perfect time to pick it up and give it a go. There's twice as much content in it now, and we're almost at the point of our full release (sometime early 2020).

At this point, where the majority of content and gameplay is already IN the game, we're looking for your input to help us polish the game and achieve its peak potential. Your feedback and support means THE WORLD to us!
If you like what you see, please leave us a steam review.
If you want to give us live feedback and get an insider look at the development - join us on DISCORD!
If you wish to see ELDERBORN grow, please consider following us on FACEBOOK &TWITTER and posting about us.

Thank you, warriors, and good hunting!

Warriors!

Once more we’re diving deep into the core of ELDERBORN to make some game-changing decisions. Some of them you will see at the first glimpse (the user interface paying tribute to FPS hall of fame classics) others need to be experienced to be recognized (new player movement and combat control).

The game is now harder and more demanding but also you get greater control over the character's combat style. When you want to eliminate undead with one precise hit, go with the strength. If you feel that movement is too clumsy you now can level up your speed. Want to tank bigger groups of enemies like a berserker? Resilience is there for you. Yes. You get to progress and build the character's attributes the way you want and get the experience better suited to your play style. The changes in this update are extensive, so we encourage you to start over and experience the game in its new flavor from the very beginning (in fact… we'll just wipe out the saved games, so you don't really have a choice. Sorry!)

Some may wonder, what of the City Content Update that was going to be the next in line, according to our roadmap. Worry not! The City is taking its final form as we speak and you'll get to fight your way through its terraces, alleys, and squares soon enough. But the player feedback you were providing us turned our attention towards game mechanics first. And it would be a poor choice of order if we released a new map with the old mechanics, just to rebalance it for the new features soon after. Yes, the City is well underway, but core gameplay takes priority.

In this update we are breaking some of the limits we've put on ourselves at the beginning of ELDERBORN's development and explore the unknown. This makes your feedback even more important than ever before.

• We’ve introduced a graphical interface to make keeping track of your health and other factors easier and to pay a tribute to some old-school metal-hearted shooters we love
  
• Health regen is out by default - do keep track of your health!
  
• Enemy attack can now disrupt your action - be more mindful of their movements!
  
• Hitting your enemies back lets you partially regain your HP loss, and the faster you do it, the more health you get back - strike back quick!
  
• Enemies now drop “essence” and there are "essence cashes" scattered across the environment
  
• Essence fills phials, that you can use to heal yourself
  
• Essence also serves as XP that you can spend it while meditating at the fountains (use the fountain for a second time after saving, to distribute attribute points and unlock skills)
  
• When you die, you drop all the essence you were carrying, but it will remain there and you’ll get one chance to recover it after you respawn at the fountain

Each of the attributes that you can develop, comes with a set of three unique skills - active or passive - that will become unlockable after you bring the attribute to the required level. Two first skills are treated as basic, while the third is considered the ultimate skill in the given tree, and requires unlocking at least one of the basic skills in that tree first. That’s a total of 9 skills giving you the ability to shape your character build in line with your play style.

• Charge: Find your balance, build up momentum and launch a charge towards your enemies, breaking their stance, staggering, and hurting them
  
• Rip and tear: Reach down towards a fallen foe, rip their head right off their shoulders, and hurl it violently towards another enemy
  
• Stomp: Launch into the air and drop like a bomb on the heads of your foes launching a shockwave as you reach the ground

• Essence hunter: Stop wasting time chasing after essence dropped by slain foes - now you pull essence towards you, over distance
  
• Reflect projectile: Time a parry right to knock a projectile launched by the foe out of its path, and right into your closest enemy
  
• Air dash: Even gravity has no dominion over you! Dashing is now possible even in mid-jump or while falling

• Too stubborn to slay: When your health drops to zero and you’d normally die, you get one more chance to kill a foe and thus regain full health
  
• Licking your wounds: If your health is very low, find a safe spot, catch some breath, and slowly regain up to 40% of your HP
  
• Barbaric rage: you speed up, the world slows down, and with every kill you regain some health

This is an important chapter in the development of ELDERBORN, warriors! The game now has more complexity than ever and it’s closer to what we imagined - the embodiment of modern git good gameplay philosophy wrapped up in single-player, old-school, heavy metal, brutal goodness. We’re getting there - this isn’t even our final form, but it’s significantly closer to our ultimate vision. Your feedback and support means THE WORLD to us now.
If you like what you see, please leave us a steam review.
If you want to give us live feedback and get an insider look at the development - join us on DISCORD!
If you wish to see ELDERBORN grow, please consider following us on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM, and posting about us.

Thank you, warriors, and good hunting!

Update we are working on is bigger and more significant than we assumed while deciding roadmap. Read more in statemant below and join us on discord :)

https://discord.gg/2wu7Cpj