Announcing – Enter The Arena!

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As Season 2 in Battlerite soon falls upon us, so does our first Official Tournament!

Stunlock Studios and Twitch are proud to announce the ‘Enter the Arena’ Battlerite tournament presented by Beyond the Summit later this month. This kicks off the competitive scene for Battlerite in 2017 with a mix of invited teams and open qualifiers for a showdown of the best-of-the-best in both Europe and North America on two consecutive action-packed days, with a prize pool of $10,000.

 

 

We at Stunlock Studios  are excited to kick off Season 2 with a bang together with the awesome people over at Beyond the Summit and Twitch. In just a week the open qualifiers begin, where both European and North American players can earn their place to duke it out with pre-invited teams in the two-day tournament finals presented by Beyond the Summit from their studio in the L.A.

If you’re tuning in to Battlerite for the first time you’ll get the gist of it in a heartbeat, with similarities to fighting games, and World of Warcraft arena. It’s a fast-paced, visually dynamic brawlfest with an emphasis on skill and precision, favoring ‘WASD’ character movement and skillshots over ‘click-to-move’ and targeted abilities. As a first encounter with Battlerite for many viewers, we’re hoping to not only offer an entertaining broadcast, but to also introduce the game’s intricacies to fresh audiences, newer players as well as esports fans. We’re looking forward to the full free-to-play release and a series of competitive events this year.

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Battlerite Development Update

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In the next coming months we will be working on preparing Battlerite for Free-To-Play launch. We need to improve some core areas of the Battlerite experience before it is ready for the influx of new players at launch.

We want to open up about these changes with you so you have the opportunity to provide feedback as we progress.


1. Improve the experience for new players

We want to ensure the first experience of Battlerite is as optimal and fun as possible. Right now our analysis shows players aren’t quite ready for PvP after the tutorial and Vs Ai. Improving this area will help players find their first PvP games more rewarding.

One possibility we’re looking at is introducing 1v1 matches. This would include PvP duels as well as vs AI matches and we’re considering a campaign mode to enhance the new user experience. We are also looking at improving the existing AI and adding lighter tutorial segments where additional information about playing Battlerite can be introduced.

By improving the new player experience we will improve our retention which will encourage more people to play Battlerite, adding to the matchmaking experience as a whole.


2. More ways to play

Our statistics show that players have started to play in shorter sessions. We’re now looking at introducing other ways to play Battlerite which offer more variety and breathing room.  

We are considering to add additional game modes with more fun objectives or rules, where the pace feels significantly different to the main mode. Game modes is something we have heavily experimented with. At the moment we have 2-3 strong game modes that are being tested.


3. New UI Styling & Experience

The current user interface (UI) was designed in early Alpha and has remained more or less unchanged. We want to create a new UI that is reflective of the in-game Battlerite experience and allows more flexibility for new features to be implemented in the future.


To solve this, we’ve started work on a user interface overhaul and an improved look that communicates the fast-paced brawling action of Battlerite. This includes (although not limited to) looking at a new menu navigation, new character selection screen, new art styling, improved friends/social system, improved Odeum/replays integration and improving the pre/post match experience as a whole.

Our plan is to use the current UI as a testing ground for new features and backend improvements until the new UI is ready for implementation.


4. Gameplay and Mechanics

Before the Free-To-Play release we will be looking to push the gameplay of Battlerite a step further. Besides continually looking at the Battlerites of our champions, we are also experimenting with the core mechanics.

We are looking at mechanics that are applicable to all champions as well as mechanics that are specific to a champion. Another area we are looking at is the mechanics associated to the maps, as well as the maps themselves.

We have detailed what we are currently trying out below.

Pushing the overall quality and depth of Battlerite is our priority in preparing for the Free-To-Play release. You can expect new champions and content at a slightly slower pace as we use our time in Early Access to experiment with the core mechanics of the game.

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Dev Blog #1 – Katey Reports

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Hellooo Battlerite fans!

Welcome to the very first dev blog!  My name is Katey and I work here at Stunlock Studios (SLS for short) as Brand Manager & UI Designer. If you’re an active reddit user, you may have seen me on there recently. I’ve been trying to answer questions and get more involved with the community.

To start with we will aim for a dev blog to be released every Monday. The blogs will be written by a different developer each week and will also vary in subject matter. We want to open up about our development, give insight on decisions we’ve made, and involve you in the process.

The first thing I want to mention is that some time this week we’ll be posting a bigger announcement that’s going to give you a better overview of what we’re focusing on in development in the months ahead. This will be a broader look at our development process, so if you feel like this blog falls short, be sure to check back for that upcoming post as it may give you more insight.

In my blogs, I’ve decided I want to give you guys an update on random things that people in the office have been working on in the previous week. In the office, we’ve jokingly called this the “Katey going around annoying everyone” blog. I can also provide specific information about what’s going on in the user interface team, since this is where I primarily work.

I am personally a big fan of art, so what really grabbed my eye when pestering the art team in particular was the upcoming Grand Champion mount. It all started with the concept by our Art Director, Johan Aronson:

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Concept Art of the Grand Champion mount

As the mount is for use by Grand Champions of the previous Season only, it needed to not only match the Grand Champion league icon, but also make players feel like kings of the arena. The art team felt that a lion was the perfect choice.

After the concept is nailed, it’s down to the 3D artist to begin sculpting the mount. Our 3D artist intern, Sofia Hansson (aka Chili), kindly shared some shots of the sculpt with me and talked about her process.

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The sculpt in Zbrush

Sofia: “The hardest part for me was the fur. Luckily, I recently worked on a Legendary Outfit that gave me some insight into texturing fur, which helped to speed this up. We texture our models by hand using 3D-coat. This program allows us to paint onto the model directly in a 3D space. Another thing I had to do a bit more learning about was hard-surface sculpting, so I watched some videos to point me in the right direction. The hard-surface parts of this sculpt are the armor plating, etc. Once the sculpt is done, I then create the low-poly version which is what will be used in the game.”

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