Dear players,

A new patch is now available:

• Added players: Lorenzo Musetti and Elisabetta Cocciaretto
  
  
  
  
• Added Coach Don Battee and Mentor Elliot Loney as playable players
  
• Added Belgrade Tournament
  
• Added Riyadh WTA finals Venue
  
• Added Nadal Uniform
  
  
  
• Added Singlet and backwards cap as clothing selectables
  
• Added Clay dust to socks
  
• Improved Community Venue selection process in Career
  
• Improved Conditions for Umpire announcements
  
• Improved pre-match skills UI display in Career
  
• Improved Career match XP explainer UI
  
• Improved post-match rewards screen for career
  
• Made trophy cutscenes unskippable
  
• Refactor career simulation from tournament screen to advance time correctly
  
• Tuned Easiest and Easy difficulty
  
• Tuned Shot Power based on difficulty
  
• Tuned Serves
  
• Tuned Drill and Tutorial difficulty
  
• Tuned Career tournament XP
  
• Tuned Scramble speeds
  
• Tuned Point Stamina
  
• Correct logic behind the Reactive, Positive Reinforcement and Tennis The Menace achievements
  
• Stability Improvements

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2264340/TIEBREAK_Official_game_of_the_ATP_and_WTA/

The TIEBREAK Team.

Join-us:
Tiebreak on X/Twitter Tiebreak on Facebook Tiebreak on Instagram

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2014550/Voidwrought/


Here’s a list of the bug fixes and quality of life changes included in Build 1.0.7:

• Ose Softlock Failsafe: Loading a save with the Ose softlock will put the player in the Shrine
  
• Ose Softlock Failsafe: Ose won’t save the player’s position anymore
  
• Vaults won’t save the player’s position anymore
  
• Removed Unstable Nuclei “gate” after the Fermented boss to prevent possible softlocks
  
• A hitbox of a secret in the Gardens now deactivates as it should
  
• Set correct button prompts for the gate to the Court in the Commons.
  
• Room before the Prince modified to prevent the player becoming stuck in the pit when not having certain Simulacra
  
• Void Step Targets are now faintly indicated even when obscured or hidden within secret areas
  
• The extra health slots provided by the Slave soul are now refilled from all healing sources
  
• Relic Containers now spawn after the North Encounter in the Abandoned Expedition and after the Alchemist Miniboss to prevent rare cases of rewards being missed

Thank you once again to all of our players for your detailed bug reports!

If you do encounter any other bugs or would like to give feedback on your experience of Voidwrought so far, we’d love to hear from you either in our Steam Forum or on Discord.

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BUGS FİXED

- Changes to the internal rendering engine

We are one week out from the launch of Claws & Chaos, and the game’s first post-launch update has just gone live. We’ve been reviewing player data, watching streams, and reading your reviews - we think you’ll be happy to read that most of this patch is about matchmaking and unit balancing.

We’ve adjusted matchmaking to make matchups a bit more fair, added a combat timeout timer, added a Damage Dealt/Taken tracker to the combat screen, nerfed a few creatures, and buffed a few more.

But that’s just the start. Read on for everything new, changed, and updated in Claws & Chaos v1.01.17.

And THANK YOU for playing our game, and giving us your feedback!

• Matchmaking adjustment to make matchups feel more winnable. Note that with this patch, the matchmaking teams currently populated will also reset.
• Rapture Leaderboard Reset will occur during this maintenance.
• Login Retry button added to maintenance popup. Under unstable internet connections, we’ve noticed players fail the login despite Servers being up. Players can retry the login instead of exiting.
• Combat timeout timer for when two units with a beta carotene overload are whacking each other and outhealing. After 1 minute of game time a burst of damage will kill everyone on field!

• Added Damage Dealt/Taken tracker UI in combat.
• Adjusted Campaign screen to always scroll to the right to show the latest chapter unlock.
• ESC key should open up Settings menu in combat or main menu.
• ESC key will close other popups in the main menu.
• Fixed Rapture card history (deck in top left) to show proper activation phase.
• Added Fine Threads to the main menu resource list.
• Clarified tooltips for the main menu resource list to show where to acquire/spend.
• Additional stat rows added in unit detail window (Phys Resist, Mag Resist, HP Regen).
• Leaderboard rewards now display in the leaderboard window so you know what you’re placing for!

• Twitch Integration !cc join command should now persist between waves.
• Fixed bug in which in Profile’s Latest Campaign tracker wasn’t updating right.
• Username creation’s word filter was being overzealous and preventing all caps names. This is now allowed again. Reasonable Username change requests can be made by opening a Discord ticket.

Introducing a stat cap: For all units stats now cap during battle (not just the shop phase) at 400 HP and 50 ATK. Any buffs applied during battle will not result in going over this cap. Critical hits can still go over 50 damage.

Bears
Secret Agent Bear

• Now deals True damage

Slothbear Revolutionary

• ATK SPD 0.8->1
• ATK 8 -> 7

Birds
Penguin Student

• HP 30->35

Peacock Cricketer is now active in the roster
Cats
Loaf Cat

• HP 70->65

Dogs
Fox Thief

• ATK 8->9

Rabbits
Rabbit Middleschooler

• Range 8->6

Raccoons
Shady Food Vendor

• Ability changed:

• On Deploy: Replace first shop item with 2-cost Laxative

Rodents
Weeb Hamster

• HP 38->40
• ATK 7->8

Capy Guardian

• HP 55->60
• Shield gain from ability increased from 3/6/9 -> 4/8/12 per attack

Hey everyone,

Today is the day! Dragon Age: The Veilguard launches at 9am PDT globally on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. We are so excited to share this day with you. Whether you’ve been waiting since Dragon Age: Inquisition or only a few days, we appreciate you and your support.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is designed with the flexibility to play the game your way, customizing your experience to best suit your play style from the menu options to combat. We have some tips from our team to share as you get started and find what works best for you!

As you begin your journey, we also encourage you to take some time to look through the Settings menus. There are a lot of different customizations you can make to tweak your game to your preferences, including accessibility options. Read more about these options in our Accessibility blog so you can play how you prefer at launch.

Throughout Dragon Age: The Veilguard, you’ll be fighting various enemies in Thedas, from demons to corrupt blood mages, and each type of enemy has their own weaknesses and resistances. When creating your Rook, you’ll be able to choose between three classes - stalwart Warrior, deft Rogue, or spell-slinging Mage. If you want guidance on which class to choose and an introduction to our combat system, we encourage you to check out our Combat blog.

You can swap your abilities, and those of your companions, at any time outside of combat. You can also respec individual nodes or the entire skill tree to try out entirely new builds. We hope you feel empowered to try out multiple builds, abilities, and specializations areas. Read more about the skill tree in our Progression blog. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out a few of our team’s favorite builds:


Mage: Spellblade Specialization

• Meteor
  
• Wall of Fire
  
• Chain Lightning
  
• Ultimate: Thunderous End

Rogue: Duelist Specialization

• A Thousand Cuts
  
• Lightning Flask
  
• Explosive Daggers
  
• Ultimate: Murder of Crows

Warrior: Champion Specialization

• Whirlwind
  
• Grappling Spear
  
• Deadly Ground
  
• Ultimate: Warden’s Fire

Dragon Age: The Veilguard opens up for exploration after the Prologue ends. As you progress through the first several quests, you’ll find more and more places to explore, from the Hossberg Wetlands to Treviso. We really encourage you to take some time to delve into each area you come across for extra side quests and loot. Check out our Exploration blog for more details!

Companions have always been at the heart of the Dragon Age franchise, and there will be plenty of opportunities to get to know each of your allies in this game. Each of their stories, and those of the factions as well, adds to the story and experience of the game. We encourage you to complete side content and companion quests, as they will have a direct impact on how the later stages of the game unfold.

We’re so excited to share Dragon Age: The Veilguard with you. This moment has been a long time coming, and we can’t wait to hear all of your thoughts about our game. We hope you enjoy diving back into Thedas! Join our BioWare Discord to join in with other fans, ask questions, and receive tips. Get Dragon Age: The Veilguard on Steam NOW!

- The Dragon Age Team

Greetings Victorians and Happy Thursday!

This will be the first part of the Art of Pivot of Empire showcasing the 2D art made for the Immersion Pack, while part two, focusing on the 3D art, will be released in a couple of weeks. Like the previous Immersion Pack, a brand new interface skin and paper map have been lovingly crafted with a decidedly Indian flavor. Along with the new skins, we have 8 brand new event illustrations and many more icons to support the new features coming in Pivot of Empire. For both the UI reskin and the paper map, the artists have drawn inspiration from traditional Indian architecture, classical Indian paintings, and commonly used colors such as turquoise and saffron. Without further ado, let’s jump straight into the first topic - the new interface skin!

There is so much inspiration to draw from the Indian culture with their rich and extremely long history. Instead of focusing only on one time period exclusively, we take elements from Indian art, architecture and ornaments throughout their entire history (up until 1936 of course) which adds the cultural touch that makes this interface unique. Inspired by the plethora of highly detailed stone carvings and historical monuments from India, we decided to use white stone as a base material for the interface. The ornate and heavier material is also quite different from previous interface skins. To contrast the off-white stone color, we balanced the warm tone with a turquoise fresco look on the headers.





We explored a combination of different materials, frames and colors.



This was a rock solid choice, I must say

There are several key motifs that we use for the interface skin, as well as the paper map (we will talk more about that later): flowery and plant patterns, mandala configurations and animals. Elephants have been a key element in many Indian art throughout history and there has been no better time than now to add elephants into the interface of Victoria 3! Another common animal featured in Indian art is the graceful peacock -we have incorporated these two creatures into the UI panels, combined with the other motifs mentioned. (Try to find out how many elephants are in the UI skin as well as the papermap!)


I think these animals are ‘relephant’ to the theme


Floral and plant patterns surround the elephant and the peacock.

The paper map draws inspiration from many of the same sources as the interface skin but with a deeper focus on Indian paintings. Several key elements of Indian paintings are a flat look with limited perspective and a soft, almost watercolor like painting style. Like the papermap from Voice of The People, the illustrations depict key events and slice of life moments in history, but with a focus on India. The art team worked with the Narrative designers to come up with interesting moments on Indian nationalism, the relationship between India and Great Britain and general life in India in the Victorian age. It was truly not an easy task to narrow it down!





[Can you identify these key historical moments?]

A key element is the changing of the languages of text on the paper map UI skin when it makes sense. The last time we did it was in the Voice of The People, where we changed the names of the oceans and seas (and a few other elements) to French. This time is no exception, where we used the Hindi script for the text. There was much discussion between Narrative Design and Art on which Indian language to use. English was a strong contender since it was prominently used in British East India as well as today. Ultimately we settled on Hindi as it is the main language of India today and not using English adds more immersion to the map.




A simple change like this adds so much more immersion to the visuals!

We are also adding mountains and forests in the style of landscape art in classical Indian paintings. A new addition is the illustrations of key cities around the world in the Victorian Age, again, inspired by Indian art. The key cities also have some culture variation on them so you won’t see London represented by an Indian style city!




Cities, mountain ranges and forests dot the landmasses.

If you haven’t noticed already, the 2D artists work very closely with the Narrative Designers on many aspects in Victoria 3. The event illustrations are no exception. Once the designers have come up with the theme of an event image as well as provide some references, the concept artist will start researching and finding even more references. He/she will also most likely have more questions for the Narrative designers and this will facilitate the next step, which is to brainstorm and provide thumbnail sketches.


Early sketches to determine the final composition

The Art Director will work together with me to provide feedback and decide on the final composition. In the example above (which is the Indian urban scene) we wanted to have a greater sense of scale since other illustrations are more zoomed in. Other urban scenes that were done previously were also quite up close and personal, showing more of the people on the ground. By taking a more zoomed out approach, we would also be able to show off the urban density and the masses.


Final Indian city illustration with the mood and tone we want to achieve.

As a general rule of thumb, we always try to come up with illustrations that can work for multiple events to increase the visibility of the beautiful new art. Overall themes for the event illustrations include the relationship between the Indians and the British, the cultural divide and tensions amongst the Indian population and the general life in India (rural and urban) during the Victorian age.


What new instructions from the British overlords this time?



Tensions are at an all time high.



A romanticized look at life in India in the 19th century

With new features comes new icons. (of course existing features will also have new icons such as new laws and new companies) For this section, I would like to show the general process of designing a new icon set for the Acceptance feature coming in 1.8.

There are 5 tiers of Acceptance with (V) being Full Acceptance and (I) as Violent Hostility. With that in mind, here are three general principles for the Acceptance tier icons

1. The icons will show things/situations getting worse gradually
   
2. We want to use colors to represent each tier as well, with cool colors representing tiers (V) and (IV) and having a gradual shift towards red which represents tier (I).
   
3. As with general icon design principles, the silhouettes must be clear.

We explored various icon styles with the intention of adding more flavor to the tiers. For instances where the tier icons are displayed really tiny, we always have the numerical icons with the same color styles as mentioned above.


A more illustrative style perhaps or something a little more graphical

More exploration gave rise to the idea of continuity and consistent story telling between the 5 tier icons. Each icon will be represented by two characters ‘Tophat guy- a straightforward and iconic representation of the ideal citizen who has made it in life in the Victorian era’ and ‘Character 2’ - which changes every tier.


Exploring multiple variants. Truly horrible to have a person caged like an animal in Tier I

For Full Acceptance (V), we can see that ‘Tophat guy’ is shaking hands with ‘Character 2’ which is represented as a typical worker. For Second class citizen (IV) we can see the relationship has sort of soured and ‘Character 2’ is facing away from ‘Tophat guy’ who's giving him a thumbs down. While the ‘thumbs down’ sign can be hard to see, the pose makes the silhouette more distinct. For tiers (III) to (I), we can see a recurring theme and how ‘Tophat guy’ treats ‘Character 2’ worse and worse. In fact, ‘Character 2’ even loses any sense of identity and is just a silhouette of a person with no other distinct features.


[Final tier icons with the simplified variants as well as the Acceptance frame]

Icons were also created for Famines and Harvest conditions which is another new feature. However, no new style was needed and we reference the State trait icons to make the new Harvest conditions icons. Core principles for the Harvest Condition icons include a primary or dominant color and of course, distinct silhouettes!



Famine and Harvest Condition icons

The 2D art team have also created icons for existing features like Laws, Ideologies, new Buildings, new companies and new Achievements (which will be shown in a future Dev Diary.


Just some of the new icons for existing features.

And this wraps up this week’s Dev Diary! I hope you enjoyed the insights into what goes on with the creation of the 2D art for the Pivot of Empire pack! Next week we have Vicka detailing even more exciting narrative content coming for the game!

Our Command and Control Update is coming on November 7th, and we're detailing all of the content coming with the next major content update to Six Days in Fallujah! Additionally, we want to outline all the existing content available for new players looking to join the community.

For a full list of changes and bug fixes, Patch Notes will be available on November 7th.

We present you with a most ceremonious "boo 👻" from us. Contrary to what the season would demand from us, we are NOT here to scare you. We only bring the good stuff here.

We're approaching the finishing line of the development of Oppidum. Yes, it's real, it's happening! We haven't been exactly quiet about it, but it's time we gear up for the release, which is happening sooner than you might think. While we still keep it shush for now, let's talk about a few things in the meantime.


Given the recent Next Fest, we want to address the topic of demos and why you haven't seen one in a while.

Development on Oppidum is going really well and has been since we started. We're incredibly happy with how far we've come in roughly two years of work. We've found a pace that works for us, and we're pushing hard to maintain it so you can play Oppidum as soon as possible. However, this also means that shifting our focus to anything else would likely disrupt that momentum.

Releasing a demo for an open-world game like ours would require reallocating resources toward its development. We want to provide the best experience possible, and that means polishing everything in the demo, preparing to address any issues you encounter, and ensuring a smooth experience overall. In short, we'd have to pause core development and focus entirely on a small section of Oppidum for the demo. On top of that, we're also considering how to select the best portion of the game to represent the full Oppidum experience.

Does this mean there will never be another demo or beta test? Absolutely not. We're still exploring ways to let you try Oppidum in its current state. The game is already a delight for fans of survival, adventure, and story-rich experiences. We're still adding the final touches, since Oppidum will have a full-release. For those of you who were worried about an early-access, you can stop worrying now!

Rest assured, we're committed to finding solutions. We're beyond excited for you to play the game. In the meantime, here's a comparison showing how Oppidum looked in early 2023 versus how it looks now, so you can see what our development process has achieved. We hope you're as excited about it as we are.




I'll admit that was a really long wall of text, so let me compensate that, and show you a few bits of newly added stuff, so I can further prove my point for our working philosophy:

We've changed the look of the water!

There's a whole new swamp area.

We've rehashed every hairstyle in the game and added the option to choose two colors.

Let's not forget horses!


That's a great question, and we’re almost ready to answer it! In fact, we’re working on an announcement that will give you the details, and we want to do it right, with plenty of fireworks.

So, if you haven’t already, now is the perfect time to join our Discord, spread the word about the game, and invite your friends to join the community!

In the meantime, we're gonna get right back at work. We once again want to thank you for your support, and for getting this far with us. We can't wait to share the world of Oppidum with all of you!

See you soon!

Hi everyone! I’m Elle, 2D Artist at Triumph. “The Toms”© have allowed me to ramble on about everything art, so get a cup of coffee or tea (the latter would be more thematic) and join me on this grand showcase of The Art of ‘Ways of War’!


Image description: Ways of War teaser image, showing the Blossom node TC map in the foreground and an Oathsworn city in the background.


The Oathsworn culture was inspired by east asian mythology, fantasies, and theater. Since Age of Wonders 4 is a fantasy 4X, historical accuracy is not the priority. It was important for us to be respectful of the real-life cultures and history that inspired us, while focusing on creating a fantasy that fit into the existing AOW4 universe.

We started the Oathsworn culture exploration with sketches close to their real life inspirations:

Image description: Early thumbnail concepts for the Oathsworn Culture.

At this stage we place most importance on creating a diverse lineup that is easily distinguishable in tactical combat. In order to do so, we break the characters down to their most basic shapes (literally - peep the Minecraft looking breakdowns underneath the drawings). More explorations:

Image description: Early thumbnail concepts for the Oathsworn Culture.

If you’re wondering what the little numbers under the concepts mean in that image (I get it, I’m nosy too); those are counting how many unique tops, bottoms, and shoes the 3D character artists will need to make.

The Oathsworn culture introduces 8 new units, for which the workload would be immense if they all had entirely unique models. We’d rather spend our time on some really cool & standout pieces than 8 variations of shoes! With clever reuse, we can cut the work time down to about 5 days total per unit model: roughly 3 days to get the model in game and another 2 days to polish, tweak textures, adjust the skinning, and fitting the outfit to all the different forms and transformations (viva la modularity). :’D

We also did some exploration of the Oathsworn that went in the direction of intricate fabrics & segmented armor pieces:

Image description: More detailed concept explorations of 5 units.

But ultimately we decided that this direction was edging too close to the High culture aesthetics, which shares a lot of the visual language space we were exploring. Both are order cultures, but they have very different views on what constitutes ‘order’. We wanted the Oathsworn culture to look more conditioned for war, as ‘Ways of War’ might suggest ;)

So another concept pass was done (this one done by our art director Rich) and that’s where the culture really clicked for us. It felt different enough from what we already had in game, but perfectly fit in with the existing AOW4 universe. We brought this straight to our 3D character artist Geertje, who worked out the details with photo references and paintovers. See how the units changed between that last 2D concept pass and the final 3D:

Image description: Side by side comparisons of the concept art and 3D of Oathsworn culture units.

All of these units also needed new weapons, which were made by our 3D Artist Lara. Two of these are Free Patch pantheon unlock variations, let’s see if you can guess which are which!

Image description: Finished weapon models for Oathsworn Culture & Pantheon unlocks.

As we were exploring the new weapons, our animator Michiel started fighting ghosts in the office.


Image description: GIF of Michiel swinging a long wooden sword in the office.

I asked him if he was okay, and he responded:

"The new weapon types and fighting styles (punching!) require unique animations. Animating martial arts and historical fighting styles can get very complex. So it is important to film good reference material. Luckily we have a wooden sword lying around at the Triumph Studio office. It was the perfect prop to act out the Avenger’s Helmsplitter ability!”

Image description: GIF of the Avenger units’ Helmsplitter animation, a heavy downward swing of the sword.

And before I could bring my concerns about this sword-swinging to HR, he clarified: “Yes, sometimes I’m scared of hitting things (or coworkers!) when swinging the wooden sword around. But in those cases I’ll swing a pen instead of the wooden sword. Safety first!”

See the pen blade, uhm I mean Honor Blade, in action:


Image description: GIF side by side of Michiel’s reference footage and the Honor Blade’s Defensive Strike, a cross-legged jump with a stretched out sword strike.
​

No culture is complete without city assets! When researching east asian architecture we really fell in love with the roofs, so that was the primary element we wanted to highlight and exaggerate. The early concepts by Rich:

Image description: Early concept for the Oathsworn city + a subculture variation.

The city tiers were especially influenced by the beauty that is Thai temple roof tiers, where the more important a building is, the more roof tiers it’ll have. Fully an aesthetic choice rather than it being functional, and as artists we can’t get enough of useless aesthetic choices :D

You’ll see that exact concept in the city tiers, where an additional roof tier is added for each city tier. Here are the comparisons between the subcultures’ Tier I city and Tier IV city, modeled by our 3D environment artist Tom:

Image description: In-game screenshots of Level 1 and Level 4 Oathsworn city models.

There’s also a ton of work to be done for the Oathsworn city sieges, as we need unique wall and house visuals with destructible variants. Lara did all the work modeling these as well as creating unique textures, check out the cool sculpted dragon detail!

Image description: One of the new materials made for the siege map, its use in-game shown on the left.

Image description: Different house and tower model variations.

It’s super satisfying to see all these assets come together and get to enjoy them while my units get absolutely smashed into the ground because of my poor strategic planning and inability to make friends (not quite sure I’m still talking about the game).

Image description: GIF of in-game siege battle footage.

Lastly for the Oathsworn culture, I’d like to mention the crests that you see in the subculture icons:


Image description: Oath of Harmony, Righteousness, and Strife subculture icons.

The Oathsworn are so dedicated to their oaths that they also want everyone they meet to know what they are sworn to. Inspired by Japanese Kamon, we liked the idea of each subculture having a (family) crest they can wave in battle. These crests are available as banner icons, but also show up in an immense amount of places in-game. Initially they were just intended for use in the culture outfits, but when you play you’ll find traces of them everywhere!

Check out how Sara, our 3D environment artist, integrated them in the ‘School of {Subculture}’ special province improvements:

Image description: Concepts of the ‘School of {Subculture} SPI’s at the top, and screenshots of the in-game models at the bottom.

They also show up in spells and abilities, I imagine Ana might’ve gotten sick of looking at them…


Image description: The ‘pledge’ unit enchantments shown on a Goretusk Piglet, which grant the cultural devotion mechanic to non-cultural units.


Image description: The ‘seal’ link effects, inflicted by the Sealbearer unit.

And many more places, but I’ll leave the rest to you to discover in-game! As a hint, you might find them in the units and city assets too ;)


Luis has already given you the rundown on the 4 new tomes (technically 7) that come with Ways of War, but I wanted to cast an additional spotlight on the three ‘technically also tome books’; the culture tomes!

Image description: The finished tome art for all three subculture tomes, from left to right: Harmony, Righteousness, and Strife.

Every culture and subculture comes with a tome, and although not present in tome selection, you can still find these in the encyclopedia or your tome library! The art for them was made by our 2D and concept art intern Alex. Here’s the start to finish process:


Image description: Concepts for all three subculture tomes, starting with concepts on the left and with the finished tome on the right.

Alex played around with how we could incorporate those subculture crests that I talked about earlier without losing the feeling & themes of the tome. The Harmony tome was inspired by zen gardens, the Righteousness tome is a playful depiction of the Avenger units’ gear kit, and the Strife tome is all about the subculture’s affinity with fire and brute force.


You’ve seen glimpses of them already, but now formally introducing: The Simian and the Ogrekin, made by our 3D character art team Robin & Geertje as well as our intern Isa:

Image description: In-game visuals of the Simian and Ogrekin forms in the Physical Form selection menu. The Simian have slender bodies with prominent ears, mouths, and skin patterns. The Ogrekin have muscular bodies with prominent teeth and multiple horns.

To us, it seemed obvious which forms we needed for this expansion. You’ll recognize the inspiration we took from Journey to the West, and folklore such as the yōkai. These forms hope to fulfill two very unique fantasies as they inherently take such different approaches to war, diplomacy, and ruling their realms.

The Simian are quick, organized, and unbeatable in spirit. Their appearance is characterized by prominent ears and mouths, as well as a variety of skin patterns & decorations. The Simian come with the new free patch 1-point form trait Cheerful, which increases Morale gain. This trait came from wanting a form that was “cheerful” in personality and use, but would still allow players to make ruthless and bloodthirsty Simians in appearance.

Image description: Headshots of 10 different Simian Rulers, sampling some of the available customization options.

The Ogrekin, on the other hand, would not be praised for their swiftness. They are big, brutish, and dominate with a fiery spirit. The latter is entirely literal, as they come with the new free patch 2-point form trait Inner Fire, which increases their fire resistance and makes melee attackers sustain fire damage. Their appearance is characterized by a multitude of horns and teeth; sharp & stabby was the memo.

Image description: Headshots of 10 different Ogrekin Rulers, sampling some of the available customization options.

Inner Fire is not the only new free patch damage type specific form trait, we liked the concept of this so much that we added three of them ;)

Image description: Inner Fire, Inner Frost, and Inner Lightning form traits. All cost 2 trait points and give +3 Elemental Resistance and make the attackers sustain 3 Elemental Damage.

By the way, both the Simian and the Ogrekin come with tails, but as part of the free patch any forms with tails now have a tail slider that changes the length of the tail or removes it entirely. :)


The process of creating a unit is never linear. In theory the pipeline should be design -> concept art -> 3D -> animation -> VFX -> done. But in each step we get informed and inspired by each others’ decisions, and the Accursed Ogre (from Tome of Calamity) was a great example of this.

Image description: 5 progress pictures of the Accursed Ogre. 2D head concepts, full 2D concept, and then three versions of 3D & VFX with increasing polish.

The first iteration of the sculpt may have been closest to the concept, but we felt like it was missing something. There’s no need to go back to making new 2D concepts, we can simply paint over the 3D or try out changes directly in 3D. We found that adding tattoos to the upper body and hue shifting the red to a cooler tone really helped enhance the contrast around the unit’s face and pull attention to the new Ghostfire FX, made by Ana:

Image description: Accursed Ogre in the encyclopedia, showcasing the Ghostfire FX.

Whereas the troubleshooting happened mostly in 3D for the Accursed Ogre, our exploration for the Radiant Guardian (from Tome of Prosperity) was done mostly in 2D. We started off with a different idea entirely, thoroughly exploring feline and canine concepts inspired by Chinese guardian lion statues.

Image description: 2D concepts of the Radiant Guardian inspired by Chinese guardian lions, all four-legged with big teeth and golden decorative elements.

Although we loved this idea, there was something that we (and especially our concept artist Ollie) loved more. This other creature kept popping up in our research and rent free in our minds. “Turtles…, turtles..., turtles…”, the voices chanted. Louder and louder, until Ollie’s brain exploded and out came my personal favorite unit:

Image description: 2D concept front and back of the Radiant Guardian as a turtle, with a horned mask as shell.

Once we saw this concept there was no going back! Having plenty of canine and feline wildlife units already but not a single turtle (the shame!), it was an easy call to make. We also got the opportunity to add some fun animations such as a unique defense mode:

Image description: GIF of the Radiant Guardian’s defense mode animation, where it jumps into its shell.

And butterfly FX added by Ana, because that is exactly what it was missing:

Image description: Radiant Guardian in the encyclopedia, showcasing small butterflies flying around the unit.


I have spent entirely too much time talking but there’s still art left to show so I’ll just quickfire some last DLC content highlights for your enjoyment!

A new blossom node + tactical combat map made by Tom with an accompanying event image (which also has some cool falling leaf FX by Ana):

Image description: GIF of Blossom Node TC map in-game.

Image description: Blossom Node ‘surrender’ event image + how it looks in context in-game.


A new wooden UI Skin made by Alex:

Image description: Ways of War UI Skin elements, carved wood adorned with rope & coins.


And finally finishing off the DLC showcase with the inspiring designer words, “we need another icon”:

Image description: Varying icons made for Ways of War.


You might notice some visual updates in the free patch as well, of which a lot have come from suggestions that you, the players, have made. If you ever have any art-related feedback or suggestions, please continue sharing them in the forums! We are watching you (ominous tone) and value your feedback! Here are some of the free patch visual update highlights:

Robin, our lead 3D artist, updated the lighting in the front-end. We agreed with you that it was sometimes really hard to see your ruler and units with how dark this screen was.

Image description: Before (left) and after (right) of the front-end faction selection screen.

New faction customization interface, because we were just as sick of the sliders as you! Sliders work well when options are on a sliding scale (such as ‘Head Size’ or ‘Tail Length’, seen in the image below), but not so much for helmet or outfit options. In those cases, we’ve now replaced the sliders with icon previews.

Image description: In-game screenshot of the customization item icons being used in the place of sliders.

In early AOW4 development, we’d considered making 2D icons for all the customization options. But the workload of this would be huge, and it’d limit the amount of options we could add in the future as we’d always have to reserve extra time for making 2D icons. Our principal 3D tech artist Allert was instead able to set up 3D item previews so they’re grabbed automatically, and won’t give us additional work when adding content in the future. This system should also work for mods.

Next, the weapon enchantment visuals were updated by Ana. The old enchantments were visually overwhelming, especially when combined with other enchantments and transformations. The new enchantments should allow you to better maintain the visuals you intended for your ruler, while also just looking better overall!


Image description: Before (top) and after (bottom) of the ‘Lightning Blades’ enchantment visual.



Image description: Before (top) and after (bottom) of the ‘Flameburst Weapons’ enchantment visual.

We also did some much needed accessibility updates for the color blind. There were some particularly egregious places where we used red and green to distinguish between important elements, which obviously makes the difference impossible to see for those with red-green colorblindness. You’ll find visual updates in the enemy combat banners, tactical hazard icons, and the battle prediction colors.

Image description: Added visual distinction in the form of spikes to the TC unit banners, which previously could only be distinguished by color.

Image description: Added visual distinction to the TC hazards, which now use up/down arrows for positive/negative warnings respectively.

Image description: Tweaked colors on the battle prediction bar for better visual contrast.


And as a last highlight, the much requested option to disable the angelic transformation glow!
Image description: ‘Angelic Transformation’ major transformation with visuals enabled (left) and disabled (right).

Just like that, I’m all out of images! I hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at what the art team has been up to, and most of all I hope you enjoy playing with the new content. :)

The wait is almost over, as the Ways of War content pack and Tiger Update free patch release on the 5th of November!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/3181480/Age_of_Wonders_4_Expansion_Pass_2/


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