We’ve been hard at work since running our last closed alpha test, and during that time we’ve made some significant changes and improvements that we’d really love to share.

The first thing I’d like to mention is that we’ve made a very strong addition to our team by bringing on Mike Waterston, a tremendous creative writer who not only brings fresh ideas to the table, but has also increased the quality of our written work tenfold. You’ll get a glimpse of some of his work in the near future when we launch the Empyrios website showcasing the world lore, races, classes, and story.

During testing we found that our vision for the single player campaigns had worked out extremely well. This was to have a separate campaign for each faction, therefore letting you play the story from each point of view. They are also quite dynamic as the decisions that you make will not only directly affect the world, but also the entire campaign story.

For example between battles when you are on the world map there may be multiple locations where a scenario is taking place and you’ll have to make a decision. Do you help the Dvergar defend the mines? Stand with the Sylvan to defend the forest borders? Or go on the offensive and attack the Shade in their homeland? Not only will the choice you make affect the reputation of your guild with the various races, but the outcome of the battle will also affect the campaign.

Another thing we have been constantly working on is evolving the HUD and focusing on making it extremely simple to use. The last thing we want is for a player to have to guess what something actually means. In earlier versions there were some ambiguous components, such as the “magic number” that was in the top right of the ability description. This was something we wanted to fix for quite a long time, and now we’ve finally had time to clean it up.

Health, power, and turns are now clearly marked with small icons, and it is very simple to differentiate between positive and negative effects as we use red or blue text depending on the ability.

Outside of the actual game we have also been working on the Empyrios website, where you’ll be able to find a lot more information on everything from the story, world, races, and classes. As you can see in the screen below there is still some work needed, but we’re getting closer to launching it.

In the future as we near the release of the game we will also be adding small tools to the site such as the guild barracks, where you can choose and customize your units and build armies outside of the game, along with viewing the multiplayer leaderboards and tournament results.

So what’s next?

Even though we’ve massively improved on the UI we still aren’t 100% happy with it, and so we’ll be taking another pass at it to further improve both the look and usability. There is also a huge amount of work fleshing out the campaign further, upgrading all of the writing, and adding more dynamic events and ways to shape the world.

These all add up to our key focus which is on putting together our next major build, which we’ll be using to shoot our first trailer! As well as finalizing the Empyrios website and bringing that online.

Make sure to follow us on twitter, and like us on facebook and we’ll keep you updated on our progress, as well as having some contests for free swag! Who doesn’t like swag? Also make sure to check out our producer @JoeCreoterra on twitter, and feel free to ask any and all questions!