“The difficult thing with early production is there’s not a lot that we can show, as a lot of it is preparatory, or so early we don’t feel is ready to be made public,” Esler said. “We also want to be very careful not to share any spoilers!”
Chorus–which is not to be confused by the other game called Chorus from Deep Silver–is “moving along pretty well,” Esler said. The COVID-19 pandemic has “caused some delays,” he explained, but he remarked that he’s proud of the team for making up some of the lost time.
In terms of what’s happening with Chorus right now, Esler said the team recently got to hear a draft of the first interactive song from the game. “Obviously it’s still early, and we’re learning a lot as we go, but it was exciting to start to hear the potential of what we’re doing in a real way,” Esler commented.
Additionally, the team is finalizing some of the character designs and environment concepts, along with the storyboards. The studio has also been putting work into laying the foundation for the “technical implementation” of the game’s interactive songs, which is a major component of Chorus.
In terms of writing, Gaider is now said to have completed drafts for “roughly half” of Chorus. Summerfall’s developers have been conducting table reads, and they are “shaping up extremely well,” Esler said.
In the final game, The Last of Us 2 actor Laura Bailey will play the lead character, Grace.
Chorus was partially funded on Fig, with $690,079 USD coming in, and additional funding support from the Australian federal government. The team at Summerfall want to expand the scope for Chorus further, and are looking to raise more money to help realize this vision–but it hasn’t been easy due to the global market being what it is due to the pandemic.
Chorus: A Musical Adventure Game was announced during PAX Australia 2019. The game is part musical, part illustrated adventure game, and part character-driven narrative.
Grammy-nominated composer Austin Wintory (Journey) is working on the music, while veteran voice actor Troy Baker (who is also an accomplished musician) will work on Chorus as its voice director.
There are two Summer updates planned for Animal Crossing: New Horizons and the first one is already here. One of the new characters you will find on your beach is Gulivarrr. Much like Gulliver, Gullivarrr will need your help getting back to his ship. Using the new swimming feature, you’ll dive to the bottom of the sea to look for the communicator and return it to our new pirate friend. The following day, you’ll get 1 of 27 new pirate-themed items that range from clothing to furniture and more. In this video, Persia showcases all of the items in the Gullivarrr set. See the full list below:
Apex Legends Season 5 has seen developer Respawn try to tell the ongoing story of the game in a new way, with weekly single-player quests and accompanying lore drops revealing more about the world. The final one of these quests to come during Season 5 is now live, and those who have collected 45 Treasure Packs over the course of the season can dive in–and completing it teases what might be a new character (Ash) and map to come in Season 6.
During a mission that unlocks after completing the final Quest, you’ll walk into a vault and see the character below, who’s believed to be Ash, a simulacrum pilot and antagonist from Titanfall 2. She first appeared in Apex Legends during the Season 4 cinematic launch trailer. You’ll find her headless, but you’ll be able to approach and replace her head, seemingly bringing her back to life. By showing up in the flesh (such as it is), this may tease her arrival as a playable character.
Alongside this, players are treated to a dialogue exchange between Lifeline and Octane, which you can read below. Toward the end, Lifeline mentions, “If we go to Olympus.” Olympus is the name of a city on Psamathe, which was first teased as a future map in Apex Legends just prior to the start of Season 4.
Restoring Ash’s head
These remain simple hints for the time being, but with Season 6 on the way fairly soon–Season 5 has only a few weeks of challenges left, and no more Quests–we should begin to get a clearer picture of what’s coming soon.
Lifeline and Octane’s conversation about Olympus
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Infinity Ward has changed the name of its controversial “Border War” skin in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone after backlash. The Call of Duty developer changed the name to “Home on the Range” while also changing its in-game description.
The studio’s use of the skin has been criticized for glorifying the police at a time when protests against police violence are ongoing around the world. It also carries anti-immigration sentiments that some fans have called out on Twitter. The Santa Monica-based studio announced the change, which came via a patch on July 14, with a tweet.
A patch is now live across all platforms that fixes: · Renames D-Day’s ‘Border War’ skin and bio · An exploit where players could pick up weapons they dropped before the infil sequence in #Warzone · A Rytec AMR bug where shots were hitting above the crosshairs in their scope
The skin’s description originally read “show them the error of their ways and make them pay with D-Day’s Border War operator skin” and has now been changed to “play along with the deer and the antelope with the Home on the Range D-Day operator skin.” Nothing else about the skin was changed.
This wild ride will happen on Sunday, July 19. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the PPV will take place at the Performance Center in Florida. Raw, Smackdown, and NXT are all currently taping there for the foreseeable future. However, Extreme Rules viewers will be taking a field trip during the show, as one of the matches will take place in a spooky swamp. This is the horror show, so a spooky swamp is a must.
Depending on where you live in the world, the show will air at various times. Apologies to all the wrestling fans in the UK, as every PPV airs at midnight. Check out the start times below.
Start time:
4 PM PT
6 PM CT
7 PM ET
12 AM BST (July 20)
9 AM AEST (July 20)
Per usual, there will be a Kickoff Show on the WWE Network, starting one hour prior to the main card. There is typically one match on the preshow, and as of this writing, the match hasn’t been announced yet. And if you want to watch Extreme Rules, you’ll have to subscribe to the WWE Network. Aside from live streaming PPVs, you can watch old wrestling matches or docuseries like Undertaker: The Last Ride, which is one of the best shows of the year. The streaming service costs $10 a month, and you can cancel at any time.
As for this year’s Extreme Rules PPV, there are currently six matches on the card, but there should be a few more added between now and the start of the show. We’ll have to wait to see what happens on this week’s episode of Smackdown on Fox. Check out the confirmed matches below.
Match card:
Apollo Crews (c) vs. MVP – United States Championship
Rey Mysterio vs. Seth Rollins – Eye for an Eye Match
Bayley (c) vs. Nikki Cross – Smackdown Women’s Championship
Asuka (c) vs. Sasha Banks – Raw Women’s Championship
Drew McIntyre vs. Dolph Ziggler – WWE Championship
Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt – Wyatt Swamp Fight
While we wait for the full card, check out which way we think a few of these matches will go during the course of the evening.
Predictions:
Asuka vs. Sasha Banks
Asuka works as a champion extremely well. However, her being stuck in this back-and-forth battle with the Women’s Tag Team Champions needs a little bit of spice to keep the story fresh. While I’d rather see Asuka move forward after Extreme Rules as champ, it makes sense to give Banks the title. Let both Bayley and Banks have “dos straps” to elevate their status a little. Then, at the next PPV, give the championship right back to Asuka, and let her move on to some new talent.
Winner: Sasha Banks
Rey Mysterio vs. Seth Rollins
Who will have their eye removed from their skull? That’s the question no one is asking right now. This whole thing is very, very silly. The feud between the two is fine, but the stipulation makes no sense. This feels like a weird, over-the-top story from the Attitude era where WWE (WWF at the time) was pulling out a lot of weird stops–and not all those moments are great. Rollins and Mysterio, on their own, could have a great match. In the end, it’s going to be a trainwreck, and winners and losers don’t matter.
Winner: No one
Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt
Choo choo! Here comes the Strowman express! Because this is taking place in Wyatt’s swamp–as the Fiend/Children’s show host has reverted back to the eater of worlds–we can probably expect some cinematic wackiness in the best way possible. And while seeing Wyatt get the win over his former follower would be great, it would be a better move to have Strowman get the win at Extreme Rules and see this feud carry over to Summerslam, where Strowman will have to face The Fiend. This is a story that has legs, so let’s run with it.
Winner: Strowman
Make sure to come back to GameSpot on Sunday, July 19 for live coverage to the event. If you want to dive deeper into the weird world of wrestling, check out GameSpot’s weekly podcast Wrestle Buddies. Each week, Mat Elfring and Chris E. Hayner talk about the fun side of wrestling, from silly gimmicks to their favorite PPVs. Also, they occasionally interview wrestlers. New episodes arrive every Thursday, and you can check it out on Spotify, Stitcher, and Apple Podcasts.
Like Flick, the chipper C.J. is one of the many special visitors who will periodically stop by your island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Whereas Flick will buy your bugs and craft bug models for you, C.J. is all about seasports, and he’ll purchase any fish you’re willing to sell at a higher price than you’d normally get at Nook’s Cranny, making his visits a great chance to earn bells. But when exactly does C.J. show up, and how do you get fish models?
When Does C.J. Show Up?
Like most other Animal Crossing special visitors, there’s no telling when C.J. will appear on your island; his visits are completely random, so you’ll just need to check in every day and see if he’s there. On average, however, you’ll see him on your island at least every other week, and when he does show up, he’ll be around for a full 24 hours, from 5 AM to 5 AM.
C.J. during the Fishing Tourney
During the Fishing Tourney, C.J. will be camped out next to his tent in your town’s plaza. During his regular visits, however, he’ll be wandering around your island, so you’ll need to track him down when you want to sell him some fish. He’s sporting a distinctive yellow and black fishing vest and a too-small-for-his-head backwards cap, so he shouldn’t be too hard to spot. (It also helps that he’s the only beaver in the game, so you’ll know for sure when you’ve found him.)
Selling Fish To C.J.
Like Flick with bugs, C.J. will buy any fish you have for 150% their usual market value during his visits. This applies to any critter you’ve fished up out of the river or ocean, even if it isn’t technically a fish (such as frogs and crawfish). However, C.J. won’t buy sea creatures that you caught by diving, so don’t bother stocking up on those before you speak to him.
Before C.J. will buy your fish, however, he’ll ask you to complete a Seasports Challenge. This typically involves catching three fish of a certain size in a row, which means you’ll need to land all three of them sequentially without scaring one off. Once you’ve completed the challenge, C.J. will buy any fish you have at the aforementioned rate.
Fish Models From C.J.
In addition to buying your fish, C.J. will also tell you he can commission his talented artist partner, Flick, to create a fish model for you. Just as with Flick’s bug models, you’ll need to bring three of the same fish to C.J. to make a model. The model will be shipped to you the following day in the mail, and you can place it around your island as decorative furniture or sell it at Nook’s Cranny for three times the normal going rate of that particular fish.
Fishing Tourney
On top of his random visits, C.J. will host a Fishing Tourney periodically throughout the year. Like Flick’s Bug-Off, the Fishing Tourney gives you three minutes to reel in as many fish as you can; the more fish you land, the more points you’ll score, and you can redeem those points for special fish-themed furniture, clothing, and other exclusive items.
The Fishing Tourney takes place on the second Saturday of the following months. You can read more about how the event works and what prizes are up for grabs in our Fishing Tourney guide.
Fishing Tourney Schedule
January
April
July
October
Best Fish To Sell To C.J.
While C.J. will buy any fish for much higher than they normally cost, making even common ones like black bass generally worth keeping, you’ll naturally make the most bells by selling him fish that are already worth a lot of money. Since you can’t stack fish in your inventory like you can fruits and crafting materials, your pocket space will be fairly limited, so you may as well stock up on the fish that’ll get you the most bells.
Below, you can see some of the most valuable fish you can sell to C.J. right now in both Northern and Southern Hemisphere islands. The prices have been adjusted from their original value to the 150% value that C.J. will pay you. You can also see the full list of fish in Animal Crossing: New Horizons here.
While Sucker Punch Productions’ latest PlayStation 4 exclusive arrives this Friday, Snap Inc. and Sony have released a new Snapchat filter that turns you into the “Ghost” from Ghost of Tsushima.
The filter, which is available for all Snapchat users, gives you the same mask protagonist Jin Sakai wears in the many trailers showcasing him becoming the “Ghost,” a stealthy assassin who forgoes the samurai code in order to retake Tsushima island from the gruesome Mongols. The mask is the same one featured in Ghost of Tsushima’s Collector’s Edition, which also comes with a display stand.
You can get the Ghost of Tsushima filter from the Snapcode below.
Reviews for Ghost of Tsushima have officially hit the Internet, and critics are calling it a worthwhile send-off that wraps up this current console generation. In GameSpot’s Ghost of Tsushima review, editor Edmond Tran awarded the game a 7/10, saying, “Ghost of Tsushima is at its best when you’re riding your horse and taking in the beautiful world on your own terms, armed with a sword and a screenshot button, allowing the environmental cues and your own curiosity to guide you. It’s not quite a Criterion classic, but a lot of the time it sure looks like one.”
Check out our Ghost of Tsushima pre-order guide to learn more about the bonuses and editions available to purchase before the game launches on July 17 for PS4.
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Among the first games that’ll usher in the PlayStation 5, and thus one of the first to bring on the next console generation, is Counterplay Games’ Godfall. We’ve seen Godfall in action a few times now in trailers and videos, but some of the most intriguing tidbits about the game are things its developers have only mentioned in passing, and which haven’t yet made it into trailers or gameplay videos.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Godfall is its combination of genres. Counterplay says it sees Godfall as expanding on action-RPGs and loot game genres to create something new–what it calls a “looter-slasher.” GameSpot talked with Godfall director Keith Lee to find out exactly what the looter-slasher is all about, more about how Godfall will play, and what’s going on in its strange fantasy world.
“The vision for making this game was how we can merge [looting with] third-person melee combat, getting really juicy, tight combat mechanics, the moment to moment flow, and that experience, because a lot of the people on our team love skill-based action combat titles,” Lee explained. “Yet, also, there are people on our team, given our background having worked on Diablo and working at Blizzard, that we’ve always had a love for loot-driven action-RPGs. We love playing Borderlands. So really, the original premise and the concept was, can we have a game where it’s somewhere in the middle, meaning that it’s one part loot-driven, as well as one part skill-driven. It’s more like an intrinsic mastery of the combats while the loot is more of an extrinsic reward system for you to be motivated to play the game.”
Lee said that mastering Godfall’s broad combat system is going to be a big part of the experience, but that searching for more and better loot will be part of that experience. It comes back to Valorplates, the armor at the core of Godfall’s gameplay. There are 12 Valorplates for you to unlock as you play Godfall, each with its own specific set of stats, a passive buff for your character, and an “Archon ability.” A Valorplate’s Archon ability sounds pretty much like an ultimate ability in a game like Overwatch, or a Super ability in a game like Destiny 2–a unique, powerful thing you can use only once you’ve charged up a bar to unlock it. So because of the different stats and Archon abilities that each Valorplate offers, they sound as though they’ll function much like classes–and you’ll want to choose the right Valorplate for a given mission, or for your role in a group if you’re playing cooperatively.
Apart from your Valorplates, you’ll have other gear that determines how you play as well. There are five different classes of weapons to factor into your loadout, offering different styles of combat, as well as “augments” you can equip into your Valorplates to add different perks and stat changes.
Your character has an overall level that you’ll increase as you play, rather than leveling up your individual Valorplates. Increasing your level unlocks skill points you can allocate on a skill grid that’ll give you new abilities. As in other loot-driven action-RPGs, you’ll find stronger weapons as you play, but you’ll need to keep increasing your level to access them. If you find weapons you like in particular, though, you can use crafting materials to increase their power by upgrading them in the Seventh Sanctum, your character’s home base.
As Lee explained it, chasing loot is Godfall is perhaps a little less about always looking for something with better numbers than what you’re carrying, and more about finding things to customize your loadout to better match how you want to play, and how you’ll deal with different situations.
“From our perspective, we’re less about generating an infinite number of combinations, but more thinking about our loot a little bit more like Monster Hunter: World or maybe like God of War, where the loot is a little bit more specific,” he said. “But then, each loot piece is very meaningful or impactful if you slot it into your Valorplate or if you get a very specific weapon. So that’s been one of the big differences, is focusing on the quote-unquote ‘quality’ of the loot rather than just pure infinite quantity.”
That focus on a meaningful loot system pairs with Godfall’s focus on melee combat, which Lee compared to 2019’s God of War or Devil May Cry 5, as opposed to something like a Soulsborne game. You’ll be looking to control the battlefield, prioritize some enemies over others, and create combos.
Godfall includes more than 90 kinds of enemies, Lee said, so you’ll have a lot of potential combinations coming at you, and learning to skillfully deal with them is a big focus of Godfall’s gameplay.
“The way that we’ve designed our combat pillars from the ground up, when we first started designing in combat, is that offense is greater than defense,” Lee said. “So we really think about making sure that the player can get that feeling of offensive power fantasy. So … most Soulsborne games are much more defensive, meaning that you want to isolate. You want to do only a one-on-one. It’s disadvantageous for you to fight two-on-one. You want to always be very systematic with how you play in general. While for us, we want you to feel that you can dominate and completely eviscerate your enemies if you know how to play, plus have the right gear and loadouts. So for us, we have a much broader spectrum of enemies, more variety, and as a result of that, we also embrace many-to-one.”
The idea in Godfall is that you’re always pushing forward, prioritizing enemies, and leaning into your attack, Lee said. You’ll still face tough one-on-one fights, though. Godfall is divided into missions that you’ll choose from the Seventh Sanctum, along with your loadout. Story missions will have mid- and end-bosses you’ll face as you advance through Godfall’s tale, while “Hunt” missions will send you out to track down, learn about, and face bosses in particular. So expect some big fights that are different from the many-against-one battles with enemies you’ll fight along the way. Lee said going after and taking down bosses is one of the big structural elements of Godfall, and that you can expect a whole lot of them; story missions have their own set of bosses that are different from the ones you’ll seek out and destroy in Hunt missions. All that is part of your overarching mission to climb the Skybreaker Monolith at the center of Godfall and kill the mad god at the top.
Godfall was among the first games confirmed for the PS5, and as such, it’s taking advantage of the new console’s capabilities. Lee said the game takes advantage of the PS5’s solid-state drive for faster transfers and higher graphical performance, but one of the big focuses for Counterplay is in haptic feedback–the sense of “feeling” the game you get through controller rumble.
“What’s exciting about the DualSense controller is the fact that it has stereo vibration in terms of the rumblers, as well as resistance on the triggers, so one of the things that you can do is to create, for the first time, a sensation of your weapon hitting another weapon and how it resonates,” Lee explained. “The fact that if you’re sliding across the ground, depending on the surface of the material–you might slide on gravel or sand or water–the way the vibrations work really feel like the way that those surfaces would feel. So it’s a lot more powerful in terms of creating that experience. For us, a 3D melee combat game, this becomes really exciting, because we have lots of different types of weapons, we can have the clash of weapons, that there could be ways that we can notify the player if an enemy is offscreen about to attack you, because it is always very challenging to get a full awareness of your surroundings in a third-person melee combat game.”
Godfall is slated to release in holiday 2020.
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Overwatch‘s new event, Sigma’s Maestro Challenge, features a new legendary skin for the tank Hero. The event runs from July 14 to July 27 and offers rewards for players who secure enough wins during the challenge.
Like previous challenges, Sigma’s Maestro is focused exclusively on Sigma, not offering other skins or cosmetics. Overwatch’s larger events, like the Anniversary 2020 event, typically offer a wider variety of new item.
Overwatch Sigma’s Maestro Challenge Rewards
3 Wins | 2 Player Icons
6 Wins | 1 New Emote
9 Wins | 1 New Legendary Skin: Maestro Sigma
You can also earn up to six new sprays by watching between 2 to 6 hours of Overwatch on Twitch during the event. Alongside the challenge Blizzard has released a new soundtrack, Cities and Countries, a collection of themes from Overwatch maps and missions.
Hearthstone‘s next expansion, Scholomance Academy, is releasing in August. The new set will introduce 135 new cards including 40 new “Dual-Class” cards, a new Spellburst mechanic, and more. GameSpot spoke with game designers Chadd Nervig and Liv Breeden about the upcoming set, the new normal for how the company is approaching balance adjustments, and how an unused Demon Hunter power from Ashes of Outland helped create the new Spellburst in this set.
The last expansion [Ashes of Outland] was very grim and dark and metal. This one is a lot more lighthearted and kind of cute. When you’re deciding the order of expansions, how much do you consider what came before and what’s coming after to strike a balance?
Chadd Nervig: We definitely do keep that in mind. In general, Hearthstone tends to aim for whimsy and charm. Ashes of Outland was one of our darker sets, and this lightened things up. There’s still, “What is Kel’thuzad doing in the basement?” There’s still some darker undertones here and there.
Liv Breeden: I think the benefit of switching it up is it doesn’t create a new normal. If it’s just dark all the time, it starts to feel really sad and it’s not really Hearthstone anymore. But if we’re doing only the happy, excited sets, then they just feel the same. It’s good to have that balance of up and down between really dark and very light. That way you can play with the differences.
Dual-Class Cards
You mentioned the “dual majors,” dual class cards. From a visual design standpoint, they’ve got a unique look for Hearthstone cards, split down the middle. That’s a different way of signifying the duality of it than how you marked it with Gadgetzan.
Nervig: Yeah, Gadgetzan’s were a little different. Those were these three factions within Gadgetzan that those tri-class cards were themed after, and they had their own specific mechanics. These are explicitly dual-class, themed after the combination of those classes. Each dual-class represents a course that you could take at Scholomance Academy. For example, the Illusions course is taken by both the Mages and Rogues. You see different mechanics and on those cards that form the overlap between those.
Druid-Hunter Legendary dual-class card toys with beasts
Breeden: Gadgetzan is very much a “What faction do you belong to? What is the banner that you hold?” This really is “What makes these two classes special?” I think when you look at it, what’s the best way to do that? What’s the best way to show that this card is not like this other faction, it is really a Rogue card, but it’s also really a Mage card.
Nervig: There’s also a related thing here. We made these new card frames to visually show you the different colors of the cards, to show off the different classes. But we also took a look at the weapon frame. [The existing weapon frame] doesn’t really clearly show what class it belongs to. “What class is this weapon?” has been a really common feedback point. At the same time, doing these new card frames, we also revamped the weapon frames. You can clearly see the class on all weapons now.
“‘What class is this weapon?’ has been a really common feedback point. … We revamped the weapon frames. You can clearly see the class on all weapons now.”
You’ve been a lot more open in recent months talking about class identity. That’s something that needs to be clearly established before you make an expansion like this, where you mash up different classes by what they have in common.
Nervig: Class identity has been a major focus for us for a couple years now. The dual-classes are interesting in that, at first glance, you might think that blurs class identity. Really, the point of class identity is thinking about what the class’ capabilities are. How they do the thing is often flavorful. It doesn’t make what you expect a Mage to be able to do, it doesn’t violate that by letting them have a combo card. We get to use the mechanics from both sides. You’re not going to see Priest get a bunch of card draw through the dual class cards.
Breeden: It really made it a lot easier because we had just recently done the class identity stuff. We’ve got this sheet that says, “What are these classes good at? What are they bad at?” And then we were able to reference that, and be like, “Okay, so what works in this circle?” It is a complete circle of every class bleeds into two other classes. But it also means that we can do really interesting things, too. Druid and Hunter both do beasts, so in the crossover of the classes, it’s about beasts. But how they do beasts is very different. You can just look at Hunter beasts in general, they’re very swarmy, but Druid beasts are huge.
Was it any different finding matches for Demon Hunter, since it’s so new and it’s not quite as established?
Breeden: Demon Hunter is quite new, but a lot of these matches are flavor and mechanical focused. The Demon Hunter and Hunter matchup, I mean, come on.
Nervig: It could have gone to Demon Hunter/Rogue, for example. There’s an overlap there as well that we could have pulled from. We ended up going Demon Hunter to Warlock.
One dual-class card, Devolving Missiles, is a mashup of two popular cards. Was that often the spark of design?
Nervig: Absolutely. That sort of thing happened, at least at the starting point, a lot of the time. Lightning Bloom is basically Innervate, back when it was extremely overpowered. Now, can we do that, but offset that with the overload mechanic. That’s kind of neat. It’s like stealing two Mana from next turn in order to do a crazy thing this turn.
Breeden: We also leaned into the Demon Hunter/Warlock as one of the new mechanics. They’ve got a mechanic for their soul magic which is exclusive to just them, just this set. It’s super cool, because we can explore new spaces.
Devolving Missiles combines Arcane Missles and Devolve
The Transfer Student has different effects based on the board. Is there a plan to continue adding new effects as you add more boards?
Breeden: Our plan is that we’ll update it while it’s still in Standard, and when it rotates out, it’ll be a “Discover card from this card set.”
How Demon Hunter Influenced Spellburst
What was the origin of the Spellburst mechanic?
Nervig: We wanted to have a mechanic that really fits the fantasy here of, you’re at Scholomance Academy, this is a place all about learning magic. We experimented with things like when you cast a spell, this happens. By making it a one-time effect, something not repeatable, lets us expand out to do a whole lot of different designs with it, not just things that can scale infinitely. We get some really interesting stuff, too, like the Goody Two-Shields. You probably don’t want to cast a spell right after playing her. You want to let your Divine Shield get used up, then cast a spell, probably the next turn.
“We tried Bloodthirst in the previous set with Demon Hunter. While we didn’t keep that, we did really like the one-time trigger.”
Breeden: We tried Bloodthirst in the previous set with Demon Hunter. We wanted to do something really aggressive. We had a one-time trigger when your opponent takes damage. You play these cards, then you hit him in the face, then your Bloodthirst trigger would go off. We played around with that for the Demon Hunter before we settled on Outcast. It pushed him into this extremely narrow space, where this was all they did was go face.
While we didn’t keep that, we did really like the one-time trigger part. It creates this really interesting game dynamic where it’s not just Battlecry, it’s sometime later. There’s more gameplay to it than just playing my cards. I have to play other cards, or I have to make decisions. It’s really skill-testing in when I do it, what spell do I use, how do I construct my deck to make use of this. I think iterating on Bloodthirst to come up with Spellburst really shows that one-time triggers are really exciting, and we might do even more in the future.
Goody Two-Shields shows Spellburst effect
Rapid-Response Balance Adjustments
When unveiling Ashes of Outland, in interviews, Blizzard said it consciously made Demon Hunter cards a little higher on the power scale than usual, because it was so new. In the months since have been nerfs, nerfs, nerfs. Is the team still making Demon Hunter cards a tinge stronger?
Nervig: Our goal for Demon Hunter was always to be that they are competitive with the other classes. We also knew that this is a brand-new class, and a whole lot of what we know about balancing classes or balancing cards relies on this existing knowledge about how a class plays, what their expectations are, how they interact with the other classes, that sort of thing. We didn’t have that strong base of knowledge yet with Demon Hunter, because it’s brand new, and internal testing can only show us so much.
We knew going into it that, realistically speaking, the chances were high that we would need to make balance adjustments. So we prepared for that, and we took a different, more ready to quickly react and make changes approach to balance, starting with Ashes of Outland. I think the results there speak for themselves.
Are you going to be as prepared and agile to make quick changes, not necessarily only to Demon Hunter? Is that the philosophy going forward?
Nervig: I think this new philosophy has been working really well for us. Keeping things lively, keeping things new and fresh is really important for us. I wouldn’t expect quite the same level, but we’re ready. We’re able to make changes quickly.
“Keeping things lively, keeping things new and fresh is really important for us. I wouldn’t expect quite the same level, but we’re ready. We’re able to make changes quickly.”
Breeden: We like to experiment with different release schedules. We tried something really different with our patching schedule as well, for balances. Feedback’s been really positive. I think that’s the best way the community can show us that they like something, is to provide positive feedback. I think this expansion shows that every single time we talk to people or have interviews, people are mentioning how positive the rate at which we are fixing and adjusting things is being received.
The only criticism I’ve even heard of the patches recently was just how close this next set of nerfs is coming to the Masters Tour tournament. Was that a consideration when planning out this next one?
Nervig: We try to keep esports in mind. It is really important to us. In this case, this patch is coming out coinciding with the announcement, so there’s not a whole lot of flexibility there. Because of the proximity to the Masters Tour, we could early announce what the changes are going to be, so that players can start adjusting their decks based on that, or making predictions, or at least just thinking about it, giving them more time to think about it. The fact that Masters Tour is still close was definitely a contributing factor to why we announced the changes before actually making them.
