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Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure, Indie

Last Epoch

Last Epoch Official Teaser Trailer | Season 2 - Tombs of the Erased



Stay tuned for more details coming soon!



About Last Epoch:
Uncover the Past, Reforge the Future. Ascend into one of 15 mastery classes and explore dangerous dungeons, hunt epic loot, craft legendary weapons, and wield the power of over a hundred transformative skill trees. Last Epoch is being developed by a team of passionate Action RPG enthusiasts.


FOLLOW US



Website: https://lastepoch.com

Forum: https://forum.lastepoch.com

Twitter: http://x.com/lastepoch

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lastepochgame/

Eterra Monthly: January 2025 Edition
Hello Travelers! It’s time for another recap with January 2025’s Eterra Monthly! Let’s see what we have in store!

Hotfix Rollout


We released two fixes in January, one that fixed a minor menu-based UI issue and another that fixed an issue that caused low FPS under certain circumstances.

Eyes on Eterra


In preparation for Season 2, we are continuing to squash bugs and have made some changes internally like the following (this isn’t all of them of course, just a little appetizer):

Changes



  • Character stat sheet entry for Less Damage over Time Taken


Fixes



  • Fixed the Character Stats UI entries for “Less Damage Taken” and “Less Damage Taken from nearby enemies”
  • Fixed a bug causing the extra spears created from the Divine Fury node or the Sierpin’s Fractal Tree item while the Siege Barrage node was allocated would not be fired from the correct position when cast onto large enemies.
  • Fixed a bug where Smoke Bomb with the Cloaked Incursion node allocated would not visually expand
  • Fixed a bug where closing the Bug Report menu with the Esc key after selecting the input field would result in being unable to control the character until closing the menu with the X button”


Mike Twitch Teasers


If you missed out on any of Mike’s streams, no worries, we’ve collected all the little juicy tidbits he shared on stream!

01/03/2025

Mike blessed us on the new year with a UI update sneak peek!



01/10/2025

Starting the new year strong with more fun screenshots - this time showing new inventory tabs and key storage! He also gave a glimpse at Conviction being a little different than it used to be

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01/17/2025

Mike shared with us some…. charms?? Key rings? What could these be used for? Hmm~ how charming. (Ave made me do it).
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01/24/2025

Oh ho, what’s this? Mike showing what looks to be a sprite for Hausprix Orian? And is that a new quiver sub-type we see
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Community Build Spotlight





Welcome to the Naughty List by Lohk utilizes the Stygian Coal Unique that can take Travelers from early Monoliths into 60 second Aberroth kills, all while using low LP uniques! With the power of spamming Drain Life and Rip Blood you don’t have to worry about defenses and can focus on stacking your health, in fact, the more health you have - the more damage you do!

The gear recommended to use is a Stygian Coal with 1 LP (slammed with Critical Strike Chance, Spell Critical Strike Chance, or Cast Speed), 2x Phantom Grip with 1 LP (slammed with Intelligence), and a Mad Alchemist’s Ladle with 1 LP (slammed with Spell Critical Strike Chance).

What are the pros and cons of this build? Well, the pros are that as soon as you equip Stygian Coal the build is ready to go and can be played with few modifications. You also can use Reaper Form to give yourself a “get out of jail” free card when you may die. However, one of the cons of this build is that Reaper Form constantly drains your health along with Mind Over Body - so you would need to keep moving and killing.

Meet the Team





I was able to sit down with our Lead Combat Designer, Sam, and get a little more insight into the world of VFX!


  • Hi Sam! Could you tell us a little about your job and what it includes?

    • My official role is “Lead Combat Designer” but that maybe doesn’t tell you much. I primarily work with monsters, player skills, and VFX. I help design the attacks and plans for pretty much every monster in the game, all the way from the lowest spider to the pinnacle Aberroth. I’m the guy who makes player skills in engine, directing animation and then tuning speeds, hitboxes, etc in game. I also do a lot of VFX, or at least helping the VFX artists and moving them along. Making LE is a very collaborative process, so while I do all the things above, often times I’m working with several other people, getting feedback or discussing ideas.
    • For monsters, in addition to doing the design and writeup for them, I’m one of the guys in Unity implementing abilities, tuning animations, adjusting timing, buffing/nerfing attacks, and overall working on the in-engine part of making monsters fun and challenging to fight.
    • On the VFX side, I’m more in a guidance position at this point, but still get a chance to work on some VFX from time to time. Since I’ve been working on LE for quite a while at this point, I know a thing or two about how to make VFX for the game, so part of my job is passing on as much of that info as I can to the other VFX artists.
    • I’ve been with EHG for what, like 7 years? I joined the team soon after Kickstarter, so I’ve been here a while.

  • What inspired you to get into game development and how did you end up at this studio?

    • Partway through college in one of my game courses, they were dividing everyone up to work on different aspects of game development. We had Character Artists, Environment art, C# dev, game design, sound, VFX. Nobody signed up for VFX, and I figured I’d try to be a team player and signed up for that. A couple weeks later I had my very first VFX reel (mostly me, I also put a couple things made by others in here simply for ease of presenting at school). A few weeks after that I posted another reel with some more VFX work, and would you look at who commented!


    • At this point I’d been doing VFX for not that long and you can see for yourself that my skills were not very good, so if someone was willing to take a chance on me, I was certainly willing to give them my best effort. Within a few days of that comment from Judd, I was in the project working on a new level up VFX and a warpath update (if I remember right). I still had 2 years of school left, so I worked on LE and went to school, and after graduating in 2020 I went ham on LE.
    • Since that time I’ve gotten a tad bit better at making VFX and the game has grown into a success. It’s been pretty cool to see the game and myself grow over the years.

  • How do you balance working from home with your home life?

    • This one is tricky and one that I’ve had to work on constantly. It’s very easy to let work bleed into all parts of life. Slack (or Discord) apps on my phone make it easy to keep in touch but maybe too easy, and my work PC is the same as my gaming PC. Some things I’ve done is making sure to take breaks throughout the day, take time to step away from my PC and play with my kids for a few minutes. Immediately after work in the evenings, I make sure to take time away from the computer for at least 30-60 mins, usually eating dinner and chatting with my wife. This kinda simulates “going home from work.” I’ve turned off notifications on my phone for Slack. The app is still there, but its just sitting there waiting for me, instead of trying to poke me. If my kids come in wanting attention, as long as I’m not in a meeting, I’ll make sure to take a minute to spend time with them. Trying to keep my real life and family as the top priority and hoping that they’ll feel that. Or at least look back later and realize it.

  • How do you balance creativity with practical constraints like time, budget, or technical limitations?

    • Something I’ve learned is that a large amount of the quality, maybe 80%, comes from the first bit of work, maybe like 30-40%. Then the last 20% of the quality comes from the remaining 60-70% of the work. There’s a sweet spot where your work is “pretty darn good” but hasn’t taken loads of time to make, and the remaining effort to get it to “practically perfect” just isn’t worth the time. Basically, I’ve found a sweet spot between speed and quality that gets the most bang for my buck. This does take a bit of practice and understanding to really get down, but I feel that’s how I was able to function as the sole VFX artist on the project for several years. Technical limitations are tricky and force creativity. Part of it is understanding the ins and outs of the program you use. The more I understand Unity, the more creative I can be with the various tools and options available.

  • What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned while working in indie game development?

    • Be flexible, and willing to jump in to help wherever its needed. For example, when I started as just a VFX artist, I did that for a while, but soon noticed that the monster side of the pipeline was headed up by one person who also had a ton of other responsibilities. So I stepped in and started learning monster stuff, just experimenting a bit on my own. With a lot of trial and error and some guidance I eventually became pretty good at making monsters, and now I’m the go-to guy when there are bugs or questions about any specific enemy.
    • Going along with being flexible, at school I learned to rig and animate, and both of those skills came in very handy in earlier Last Epoch days. At one point I got a monster from the modelers, then I rigged it, animated it, put it in the engine and made the abilities for it, and then made VFX for it before sending to sound. One that comes to mind that is still in the game is the Desecrated Flesh, though I believe there are still a few others.

  • How do you stay motivated and creative, especially during long or difficult projects?

    • Part of it is that it’s just my job, if I don’t do my job, I don’t get paid and then that can impact my family. So that’s fairly motivating lol. One thing that really helps me is sharing the cool stuff that I work on. Seeing other people excited about it gets me excited to make more. The week after Aberroth’s release was one of my favorite weeks working on LE. Learning something new helps motivate me too. There’s always a new technique, tool, shader, etc that I can learn more about. The VFX world and community is growing and learning all the time, and there are countless awesome VFX artists out there. Its really fun to see what they make and what I can learn from it. There were many times throughout development where I saw a post and thought “oh that’s cool, I wonder if I can do that in LE” and then I would experiment and find a way.
    • I feel rather lucky, because my context for “long” projects is different from other studios and games. Sometimes other games will work on things for years before players get to see anything. Look at big games announced that take 6+ years to make, the devs there are working on things behind the scenes the entire time. For us, we release a patch slightly more frequently and my work gets shown and we get an influx of positivity and excitement for the game. So for me, I always know that a new project might be just a couple months away if I’m not enjoying my current one.

  • What kind of feedback from players do you find most helpful or motivating?

    • Like I’ve mentioned before, I love seeing people enjoy the game, particularly my work. It really energizes me seeing people excited and enjoying our game. Seeing metrics and numbers that people are playing our game is great, but there’s something very energizing about a streamer trying out a skill for the first time and going “oh this is cool.” For example, Runic Invocation was a big project of mine, designing all the skills and doing some of the VFX for them, and it was quite fun to see everyone experimenting and trying out all the different combos when it released.
    • For critical feedback, being more specific is helpful. For example, saying “oh the performance in this game sucks.” is not very useful or helpful. But saying “My framerate drops when I spawn a whole bunch of volatile zombies at once and they all explode on the same enemy” is much more helpful. Basically, the more detail and specificity you can give, the better. Same thing goes for boss feedback. “Lagon’s eye laser is hard to tell which way its going to come from” is much better than “Lagon op plz nerf”. I do appreciate all the feedback that we get from players, even if I don’t personally spend a lot of time in Discord or reddit reading through feedback. I find I’m too sensitive to the negative/toxic feedback, and its not great for me to spend too much time sifting through that stuff to find the good stuff, but other people have done a good job of funneling useful, actionable feedback to me.

  • What’s a feature or design choice you’re particularly proud of that you’ve worked on?

    • I really love Aberroth. I spearheaded the design of the abilities, and built them all in engine. While I didn’t do any VFX work for Aberroth, I did direct both animation and VFX . I’m the guy who adjusted anticipation timings, hitbox sizes, attack speeds, etc, and built out the different eras and their mechanics. I think overall this boss turned out stunning visually, and the difficulty hit about where we wanted for a pinnacle boss. Something I’m really proud of for myself and the team is that we made such a difficult encounter that feels FAIR. That’s something really important to me/us when designing bosses and enemies, I want to make sure that you always feel like you have a chance. The goal is that you never say, “well that was stupid, I had no way to avoid that” when you die, but rather go “oh I can play better around that next time”. Obviously we aren’t always perfect at this, and particularly some older content struggles to hit this goal. We are constantly making improvements though, and if you have feedback about any particular enemy or boss, please say something, we do try to read it all and fix what we can. Overall I think we did a pretty good job of that with Aberroth. I know it gets chaotic in the final phase of the fight with so many things to pay attention to, but I think we did a good job of still making it feel fair and reasonable, if very difficult.
    • Several years back we introduced the Rogue. I love rogues and that whole archetype in any game, so I was very excited to work on her in our game. I am the skill prototyping guy. If there is a new player skill, I’m the one who will put it together, tweak timings, projectile speeds, critique animations, etc until we have a skill that is feeling good and is fun to use. I got to do that all over for the Rogue, and it was a blast. At that point I was also the only VFX artist, so I worked a lot on the design of the skills, then handed them off to myself to make them look pretty. Was a really fun time, and I think the Rogue turned out very fun to play in addition to being one of the most cohesive classes across all her skills.

  • What advice would you give someone who wants to get into this industry?

    • Be good to work with. Someone who is very easy to work with, give feedback to, talk to, etc is so important. Try to be someone that other people think is fun to work with. Sure, you won’t get along with everyone perfectly, but generally people shouldn’t dread having to talk to you, or wonder if you’ll actually do what you say you will, or cause an argument.
    • Going along with the previous, be open and seeking feedback. Early in my career I didn’t get this as well, and thought that if people gave me feedback that I sucked at what I did. I needed to be so perfect that my work was impossible to critique. But I’ve flipped my mindset all around, and now if I get feedback its just an opportunity to get better at what I do, and I’m happy when there are things to improve on.
    • Find what you love. I will say I’ve been extremely lucky in my career. I got a job before I finished college that turned out to be a real career still several years after college. I got to do what I love from the start basically, working on VFX and then discovering a new love of monster design. That first step, the discovery, is really important. Early in my career plans I wanted to be an animator and work on like Dreamworks movies, but over time I discovered VFX and monsters and dove into it headfirst. Be open to new opportunities and learn whatever you possibly can. Especially when starting out, try all the different disciplines, learn some modeling, rigging, animation, sound, level design, anything, just to see what your favorite is.
    • Now a dose of reality. I know its hard to get games jobs right now. Like I mentioned above I’m very blessed and grateful for the opportunities I’ve had. Not everyone will be so lucky. So with that being said, play it safe, don’t quit your day job to work on your game dev skills without a plan. Realize that perhaps being a game dev as a career isn’t going to work out for everyone, and maybe just as a hobby is more realistic.

  • Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers?

    • If there is desire for it, I can compile some useful VFX resources for anyone looking to learn VFX for games. We could possibly do some demos or more in depth VFX blog breakdowns if there is interest. (and I can get approval to post something like that).
    • Be kind to each other. The world is a scary place, and games are all our break from reality. All the people working on LE (and I would argue most devs working on their games) love the game they work on, and want nothing more than to make the players have a good experience. I know its easy to be toxic behind the anonymity of the internet, but the extra effort we put in to be good to the people we interact with makes the community, internet, and world a better place for everyone.
    • Thanks all for reading all of this, I hope some of it was interesting, and if you have follow up questions or would like VFX advice, comment below or find me on Discord, I’d love to chat more!




Thank you again to Sam for taking time out of his day to answer some questions for us! And if you’d love to chat a little more with him or ask for some pointers his Discord handle on the Last Epoch Official Discord is: EHG_Sam!

Community Spotlight



As a reminder we have two posts up asking for your guys’ input! We’re giving our forums a facelift and want to know what kind of profile icons you’d like to see as well as wallpaper suggestions!


Forum Player Profile Icon Overhaul - with contest!

Hello Travelers! As part of our ongoing overhauls both in game and out - we are updating the Forums Player Profile Icons! While the current roster contains some long standing favourites, the skills they represent - and the in-game icon representing those skills - have been updated several times, so now it’s time to do the same here. Along with new Skill Icons, we’ll be adding some other in game icons such as the Egg of the Forgotten and Class Icons, though we know individuality and representa…




Wallpapers - What would you like?

A huge part of what we love from our community is the want for more! More Skills, more Classes, more gameplay, more music and - as is the topic today - more wallpapers.



Do you all remember that amazing woodwork by Vezidoroga we shared last month? Well they sent us even more progress and it looks amazing!! They said they still have antiquing and painting to do and we are just blown away by the detail and dedication. We’re so excited to see the finished piece!



What’s Next



Our teams are in the home stretch for development of Season 2 and are finalizing and iterating on new systems and changes alongside feedback from our CT program! If you are in our CT program please be sure to log in and give us your feedback if you haven’t already. Every little bit helps us along the way!

Oh also here's a little something else 😉

https://youtu.be/3_5OnoWKuP8

Closing Remarks



This has been Eterra Monthly; a report on the happenings and changes in the world of Last Epoch. We hope you have enjoyed this month’s report and will see you all again soon.

Hotfix 1.1.7.10 Notes

Bug Fixes



- Fixed a recent issue causing low FPS issues under specific conditions

Bug Fixing Last Epoch | Eradicating the Nest
Hello and welcome, Travelers to another exciting entry of Making Last Epoch. Today we have the pleasure of hearing from Anna Lyon, the Senior Technical Quality Assurance Tester for Last Epoch. She will be walking us through the Bug Fixing Process and how the team prevents Bugs from entering the live build of Last Epoch.

Bug Hunting


Locating the nest





Bugs are collected through our In-Game Bug Reporting tool which players use to tell us when they’ve found something that isn’t as it should be. Alternatively, Bugs are caught internally and we make Bug reports through our studio communication. Then automated tickets are made within our task tracking system in order to better organize the severity of the situations.

How to decide what is a Bug and what is a local issue.


  • We have a couple of ways. One is that local hardware problems would be more rare. It would be a problem that looks strange and only comes up 1 in 1000 reports. If it’s serious enough, we will make a ticket trying to reproduce the Bug ourselves and attach these reports together to do an investigation when we have time. Another comes down to experience most of the time. In this line of work you see it all, and slowly form connections between Bugs present to roughly understand where it comes from, whether it’s a visual, mechanical or hardware problem, gets easier.

  • The other is just trying to find a reproduceable case. If it’s a local problem you will most likely not run into a solid reproduction; or cases where players are able to reproduce the issue but our teams are not able to do so on our internal builds. Localized problems can even happen internally, this is why we always have more than one QA go through the same written steps to eliminate every possible difference to make sure the cause can be narrowed down to hardware.


Looking at our In-Game Bug Reports




  • QA will go through the list of Bugs and either filter by day or a specific problem. For example if we are looking for skill related issues, we might look for issues where players called out skills like “warpath” to help narrow down the list.
  • In Game Bug Reports, which are sent from the community, have all sorts of valuable info attached to them as well as any details the player offers describing what the problem is. The more detailed the report, the better everything goes for us. Some of the information automatically added to these reports includes: game graphics settings, server logs, player logs, zone name of the place they are in, a screenshot of the location, etc.
  • A good source of information outside of what the player is describing in the issue, is looking at their player logs which include client specific errors (errors related to any visual loaded into the scene) and server logs (anything loaded in on the server). If there are clues to the problem here, which most of the time there are, we use this to update the internal report to point to a specific problem that is called out.




Replication and Recording


It’s very scientific



The next step is reproduction of the problem. This is a complex step which takes a lot of trial and error using context clues from the error messages, screenshot, and what the player has mentioned in the report. From there we try to piece together what happened and try to recreate the problem. If we can, we record the reproduction steps in the report, before it gets passed to our internal tracker of issues ready for devs to take a crack at. What I want to stress is just knowing there is a problem is not enough to fix it, being able to reproduce the problem is what helps development handle Bugs quickly; reproductions are extremely important. If we cannot reproduce an issue, two things can happen:




  • If it’s serious enough it might go to a dev to investigate what a possible source might be. This can be a very long and taxing process when we have very limited information to guide us. A developer could spend that time to fix Bugs we have reproduced reliably.
  • It gets placed on-hold until we get reports of it again and reassess the details of the report to see if we can make a reproduction case with the new information. No bugs are ever forgotten and we do occasionally go through our On-Hold list to see if we can make any headway.


Fixing the Problem


Calling in the Cavalry



From there the issue is tagged by management with appropriate labels such as “skills”, “error” or “UI” and filtered to a specific team that would handle those problems. Managers task out these to individual devs when they get dropped off. The developer then fixes the problem.



The Steps:

The steps and time it takes to solve the issue varies dramatically, based on the complexity of the issue and how many other objects the Bug is affected by.

Once a developer has resolved the problem it is sent back into our QA queue for testing. This could take multiple iterations where we test if the Bug is no longer present using our reproduction steps. It might be sent back multiple times depending on if there are side effects to the fix or if it’s not fully resolved.

Once we give a Bugfix the green light, it is processed and patched to our main branch. From there it is tagged for Production, to be a candidate for a hotfix, and cycled into patch releases.



***

We'd like to thank Anna for taking the time out of her day to show us what it takes to bring down the pesky hoard of bugs that threaten our time in Eterra. We hope you've enjoyed this look into Making Last Epoch, and we will see you all again very soon!

Eterra Monthly: Dec. 2024 Edition
Welcome Travelers to the Eterra Monthly December 2024 Edition!

We hope everyone had a happy holiday season and fantastic new year! Another month has passed, and we’re here with our boots on the ground to bring you the latest from Eterra!

Eterra’s Path Forward



Our team has heard that the Cartographers have released a new map detailing the Road forward to better aid intrepid travelers on their journey. Our field reporter journeyed out to get a first hand look at what travelers can expect to find in the wilds of Eterra, let’s hear from them!

"Setting off from The Surface, I followed my usual rambling route towards Shrouded Ridge to get a look at these Dungeon Improvements! Through Lightless Arbor, then a quick hop, skip and waypoint from Corrupted Lake to Risen Lake, I made my way to through the Soulfire Bastion giving a quick nod to the Gambler before popping out at Kolheim Pass to poke my nose into the Champions Arena. While there I used that waypoint to pop over the Ruined Cost, said hello to Ortra’ek before giving the Temporal Sanctum a once over! All in all, they’re looking good!

After a good ramble round Eterra, I always take a break in the End of Time. While there I got to spy on some Monolith of Fate Improvements! I overheard talk about Woven Echoes, and something to do with Tombs and Cemeteries though it was difficult to get specific details as the workers kept getting drowned out by loud growls and rumblings. I was informed that new Champion Enemies had been seen roaming around, rarer and more formidable, these enemies should be handled with care. For travelers delving deep into the Monolith of Fate, warnings of New Endgame Bosses have been posted too.

That would explain what I saw the Sentinel preparing for. I spotted them testing some skills on the Training Dummies, they very kindly informed me that it was a ‘completely re-created Volatile Reversal skill’ - they seemed very proud of it! They also let me know that what I was seeing was also down to new Endgame Crafting Additions they had discovered.

These changes will be easier for travelers to find as the Seasons change, though for now there is a superb summary of what travellers can expect here - Season 2 and Beyond - Closer Look."

Eyes on Eterra




Faction Waypoints



“Taxi!!” - A great plot device for media set in New York, though not something you’d want to hear over and over, even in text form.

We’ve heard you though, and will be implementing a ‘Waypoint Unlock’ for The Bazaar and The Observatory. These will not act as ‘Campaign skips’ however as players will not be able to travel back to Maj’Elka from these locations.

Controller Targeting Improvements



The team has been pushing hard on Controller Improvements, and that includes an overhaul on how targeting works for all skills - even node transformations! Currently many skills can default to ‘Max Range’ but the team is working on fine-tuning specific targeting methods for each skill based on what the player is likely actually trying to accomplish.

Bug Reporting Tool Changes



In Season 2, we’re adding some QoL features to the UI. One of these is making it possible to open the In Game Bug Reporting Tool with F8, allowing players to share screenshots of UI issues for reports. It will also give a small preview of the screenshot being sent to us, to the left of the IGBR tool.



You will also be able to change the input option for keyboard, mouse and controller to better suit your needs.



Bugs!



As we mentioned in the Roadmap earlier this month, the team is tackling our ‘bug debt’ - the long standing bugs that have persisted through patches. While a portion of those issues are being addressed as part of larger changes we’ll discuss in larger posts, we can share some issues that have been confirmed as fixed by our dev team.


  • Fixed a bug where Kermode’s Cage did not give your Werebear Form white fur in Online.
  • Fixed a bug where Reaper Form did not switch its model visuals to poison, cold, or blood themes based on conversions allocated in the skill tree in Online.
  • Fixed a bug where Werebear Form did not switch its model visuals to lightning based on conversions allocated in the skill tree in Online.
  • Fixed a bug where Spriggan Form and Swarmblade Form did not switch their model visuals to cold based on conversions allocated in the skill tree in Online.
  • Fixed a bug where Overlay Map Opacity would sometimes reset when re-opening the settings menu.
  • Fixed a bug where Transplant’s Bone Armor started on cooldown when allocated.
  • Fixed a bug where Upheaval did not move its melee, area, and physical or cold tags to minion tags when Upheaval Totems is allocated.
  • For example, Apogee of Frozen Light’s +3 to cold and necrotic minion skills will now correctly apply to Upheaval when Upheaval Totems and Glacial Cascade are allocated.
  • Fixed a bug where Lightning Blast’s Halo Effect was unable to create Spark Novas.
  • Fixed a bug where Explosive Trap would not create additional traps up to your maximum traps if you allocated Blast Rain and No Man’s Land.
  • Fixed a bug where leech provided by skill trees could ignore Boulderfist’s “cannot leech” affix if the player had no other sources of leech.
  • Fixed a bug where the Coordinated Fade node would not provide stacks of Silver Shroud when the ability occupying the designated slot is a combo ability.
  • Fixed a bug where using both Unbroken Prayer & Homeward on Healing Hands makes it so the ability is never actually cast while still going through the animation and consuming mana.


Mike’s Twitch Teasers



We know not everyone has the time or time zone to join Mike on Twitch for streams and can miss out on some of the fun teasers and news that gets shared. We’ve collected all of the latest one here for you!

11-29-24

Mike seemed to be making up for a teaser light November - we had some new Sentinel nodes for Paladins and Void Knights, as well as a sneak peak at a new mob! The Marsh Beetle Queen!





12-06-24

On the first week of Christmas, Mike bequeathed to meeeee… nothing, Mike took a week off. Rude.

12-13-24

On the second week of Christmas, Mike bequeathed to meeeee… 2 new Sentinel Nodes and an existing node with something missiiiiiiing



12-20-24

On the third week of Christmas, Mike bequeathed to meeeee… Nada, they were taking a well deserved break to be with their family during the Holiday season. We all eagerly await their return to Eterra and hope they bring even more, exciting stuff for us to talk about!

Community Build Spotlight



This months Community Build Spotlight spells trouble for Aberroth, shattering their HP and Ward down to nothing in just a few strikes!



If Spellblade builds have ever caught your interest but the ‘glass cannon effect’ has put you off, look no further! While using the same Skills as the Amarathy Maxroll Shatter Strike Guide, SnoWyz focuses on improving their Dodge via Dexterity points, Ward retention via Intelligence and Cold Melee Damage via gear and idols to hit hard while avoiding hits themselves. You can see just how effective their build is in this video of them facing off against Aberroth.

While last months Build Spotlight was light on the Uniques, this one leans quite heavily on them. A key role in this build appears to be the +8 levels to Shatter Strike gained from various gear affixes, the main source being the crafted T7 ‘+4 to Level of Shatter Strike / 142% increased Cold Damage’ hybrid affix as part of their Kestrel Body Armour. Luckily this Unique drops from Level 1 making it one of the easier items to farm to get the crafting juuuuuust right. On the opposite end of the scale though we have the Red Ring of Atlaria, as this is an extremely rare drop it’s worth keeping an eye out for good alternatives while you hunt this one down.

The other Uniques such as Eye of Reen, Boulderfists, Blood of the Exile and Siphon of Anguish are easier to find, though to reach this builds full potential crafting T7 affixes onto them is recommended so try to farm them when and where you can.

You can check out the full build breakdown here on Last Epoch Tools.


Meet The Team





Hi Mike! Let’s start with who you are and what your role is in EHG!

I am a Senior Technical Game Designer. My role at EHG has evolved a lot over the years. I started out as a Game Developer but we all had so many roles back then.
Senior Technical Game Designer is a hell of a mouthful! How did you join the team?

On August 1st, 2017 I found a post on the D2 subreddit from Judd called “Creating a ARPG - Skill System Planning”. I was a recent university grad and was struggling to find a “real” job. So I was fixing computers as I had done for over 10 years at that point and had been working on a mobile first person pacman game with a friend. I still want to remake it someday as I bet it would take me a weekend to recreate 6 months of work. It would also run probably 100x faster. I was really just looking for some enthusiast project to have some fun with and Judd invited me to the Discord to chat and hang. I had a functioning early version in my hands by the next week. The character was a textureless knight. You had a handful of abilities at most. I think Leap Slam, Summon Wolf, Fireball and Cleave were what you had to work with. It had a handful of zones in a swamp setting. There might have been a basic equipment system but I don’t remember. I was already hooked. About 18 months later I quit my “real job” that I had ended up finding after all to work on LE full time.

Here is a link to my unedited, first contact with Judd: https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo2/comments/6qr9mk/creating_a_arpg_skill_system_planning/dl0q0wa/

That’s pretty awesome! Now you’re with EHG, what do you do day to day?

I mostly split my time between coming up with cool ideas, discussing game design topics, and implementing individual skill nodes or items. I also have a few other responsibilities like doing the weekly dev Q&A livestream. I’ve managed to scale back the departments that I work with over the last couple years which has been really nice to be able to focus more and more on design elements. Making new skill nodes is my favourite part of the game to work on. I have been working on a future feature for the last couple months so I’m less directly connected than usual to the implementation of the upcoming patch. I still pitch in on random bugs here and there as needed too.

Is there anything you have worked on that you’re really proud of or just want to talk about more?

There have been a lot of systems that I was really proud of at the time over the years. Most of them have been replaced at this point but I think a few of them were really key in getting us across the line for a few patches. I implemented the first full inventory grid and equipment system that we used in the Kickstarter version. I brought the ill-fated passive web to the game that we initially used, shout out to my buddy who pitched a much more complex version of that. I still want to incorporate into a game at some point in the future, it was just a touch too complex to flow smoothly for Epoch. I remember the initial Blessings design and implementation came right down to the wire. We were late night working on that before the patch and that system has survived very well. I built a lot of the world map functionality and it has a some neat little behind the scenes scripts that do some pretty boring things but I think are cool.

The part I’m most proud of though are all the skill nodes that do cool stuff that we’ve made. I can’t really take individual credit for many of them as it’s a very collaborative process but as a member of that team, I’m really happy with what we’ve been able to make.

What influences the choices you make for Last Epoch?

I feel like everything does. I have a tough time turning off the part of my brain that is looking for game mechanics everywhere. I do a lot of gaming related things in my free time so the influences come from all over the place. I get lots of influence from ARPGs and other games like D2, PoE, Zelda and Civ but it doesn’t stop there - I’ve found myself taking mental notes while playing Magic, board games, escape rooms or even watching shows like Taskmaster. Seeing what challenges people and the way they tackle those challenges is really interesting to me.

If you had unlimited resources, what would you add to Last Epoch and why?

Omega tier cinematics because having an “LE Movie” built into the game would be really cool and it’s the most expensive thing I can think of without cheating with something like 5 new base classes or 10 new end game systems and I don’t think “the best servers free forever” is a very exciting answer. But free game servers forever would let us do some pretty sweet stuff.

What do you think makes a game truly memorable for players?

Moments of Triumph. And I don’t just mean winning, I mean that one time you overcame your greatest challenge after struggling against all odds. I think this might be why many of us have such strong memories of games when we were kids. I’m old enough that fact checking Jimmy on the playground that punching a van thousands of times wouldn’t spawn a Mew wasn’t an easy thing to do. So, many times when you got stuck in a game, you were stuck for a long time. These long struggles made the Moment of Triumph so much more special. So next time you think you’re stuck in a game, I suggest avoiding asking uncle Google for help for as long as you can.

It must be fun being the Face of the Last Epoch Twitch account, how did you end up doing that?

My first time in front of the camera for Last Epoch was during the Kickstarter video. I was there mostly just because I was willing to do it. Then the first Dev Stream was in 2018, shortly after the Kickstarter. Almost nobody was there and I was actually streaming working on the game itself, not playing it. I think I was working on early passive web nodes (yes it was a web back then). At some point I got nervous of showing so many behind the scenes things and we shut it down. Probably lasted about 10 streams over a month at most. Then as time went on, I became to default person answering questions in the Discord “ask-the-devs” channel.

When we had a social team and were looking for new things to try out, I think word got around that I had streamed in the past and I was asked to try it again but this time just playing the game and I’ve done some 3? 4? years of them now. I’m not actually sure how long we’ve been doing those. We are planning on having more guests come on with me to be able to give different perspectives and talk more knowledgeably about the disciplines that I just don’t know well enough. Let us know if there is a specific discipline you would like to join me.

Final question - Why IS Teal’c better than O’Neill?

Because it must be opposite day. Teal’c is fantastic but O’Neill’s banter is what gives the show so much of its charm. Favourite episode: Window of Opportunity (the groundhog day episode). Specifically for the bit when he does all the things he has always wanted to do. Honorable Mention 1: Wormhole X-Treme! for the part when Vala pitches her and Cameron’s previous show Farscape to the director and he doesn’t recognize it. Honorable Mention 2: Moebius for the part where Sam makes fun of her own cringy opening scene from the first episode. Ah crap, now I’m just rewatching SG1 again.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers?

If the sun vanished, the earth would be orbiting an empty point in space for about 8m20s because gravity travels at the speed of light.

Community Spotlight



Vezidoroga’s Woodwork Project



We’ve been following this for a while now and it’s coming along nicely but they still won’t tell us what the final version will be! Is this how players feel when we tease features but won’t elaborate?



Christmas Gregory Emote!





No matter what you celebrated during the holidays, Gregory was there to wish you a happy holiday in his own festive way. Our Grole Intern of EHG donned his holiday hat and joined the Discord for your entertainment, hoping to spread some holiday cheer this season. While Gregory believes the holidays never end, they have agreed to return to their work uniform barrel hat by the twelfth night. However, due to a misunderstanding, they believed this to be January 12th. In the spirit of the holidays, EHG has agreed not to argue the point. Please enjoy your time with our festive intern for a while longer.

The Artwork is on the Wall!



And the writing is in the Forums! While we all wait for more news around the exciting changes and updates in Season 2, the Community Team is working on other changes such as updating our Forums! Part of that is new Profile Icons and new Wallpapers, on which we would like your input.

We have a post for each feature, so please let us know what you’d like to see!



What’s Next



As we all return from the Holiday Break, our teams will be diving back into their work for the upcoming Season 2. Between now and then we will continue to keep you updated via Eterra Monthly, let you see behind the curtain with our Making Last Epoch Blog Posts and, when the time is right, Season 2 Hype Posts!

This has been Eterra Monthly; a report on the happenings and changes in the world of Last Epoch. We hope you have enjoyed this month’s report and will see you all again soon.

Season 2 and Beyond - Closer Look
Hello Travelers,

Today, we’re sharing our updated Roadmap, letting you take your first look at what’s coming for Last Epoch, including what big features to look forward to in Season 2. Let’s look at what’s on the board with an updated Roadmap graphic before jumping into more information about Season 2.



As mentioned in our last update concerning the Season 2 timeline (previously referred to as “Patch 1.2” - https://forum.lastepoch.com/t/patch-1-2-timeline-1-1-event-updates-and-cycle-poll/73654 ), we’ve restructured the features we’ve been working on for Season 2 to specifically address the greatest areas of feedback: expanding endgame content, better new player experience, and improved Dungeons, performance, and balance.

While The Weaver’s presence has been previously known through namesake items, Season 2 will begin to truly bring her influence into the world of Eterra.

Season 2




As we continue to close in on Season 2, we’ll be diving into more in-depth posts on each of these key features and additions as we have in past Dev Blog posts, but we’ll give a quick overview here of what these features are looking to add to the game (let the theories begin on how they work!).

Monolith of Fate Upgrades



Season 2 will further build on the Monolith of Fate by introducing a host of new Echo objectives, new enemies, and reworks of old objective types to help provide more variety and fresh experiences.

Woven Echoes



A new Echo type that presents a glimpse into the Weaver's design and contain new exciting rewards you have never seen before.

Weaver Faction Tree



This new Faction (Weaver) expands the endgame experience by providing the power to augment your monolith timelines during endgame progression. This new faction will be available to all players regardless of their other Factions alignments.

Dungeon Improvements



Upgrading the Dungeon experience with many community requested improvements, and an enhanced new player experience making dungeons more accessible for their unique reward mechanics.

Sentinel Overhaul



Sentinel is getting a large number of changes to Passive Trees, and Skills, including a completely re-created Volatile Reversal skill. We’ve already started teasing many of the changes coming through our weekly Dev stream, and Eterra monthly newsletter, with more information on the way!

Tombs and Cemeteries



All-new side zones randomly encountered within Monolith Echoes, helping to bring even greater variety and unique experiences to gameplay. These side zones continue to add more mid-gameplay decision making, and rewards to the endgame experience.

Champion Enemies



A more formidable class of rare enemies are stepping onto the battlefield, bringing with them opportunities for greater rewards by overcoming challenging combat with moment-to-moment action and active decision making.

Endgame Crafting additions



Further building upon our crafting system with all new options to refine your items, continuing to build upon itemization and loot opportunities through giving more items value with powerful crafting opportunities.

New Endgame Bosses



While Aberroth may be the Pinnacle boss currently, we’re expanding the roster of bosses found throughout Eterra, to give players a greater amount of variety at end game.

And more…



In addition to the “headlining” features above, we’re significantly focusing on fixing bugs throughout the game for Season 2, both recent and long-standing, to provide a more stable and performant experience. We’re also introducing many ‘smaller’ features such as UI improvements, Quality of Life features, changes to keys and other pseudo-items storage, new Unique items, improved sounds for many skills, improvements to controller functionality with a new targeting system, and much more.

To address the most significant areas of feedback we’ve received since our Launch in February; we’ve locked in these features for Season 2: expanding the endgame, providing more experience variation, and offering continued opportunities for decision-making and progression. With this new list of feedback-focused features locked in, we’ve also been able to better scope out the timeline to introduce these features while addressing many bugs, ensuring Season 2 offers a better overall experience for everyone. With these considerations, we have just finalized our launch window for Season 2 and wanted to share the window immediately Last Epoch Season 2 launches April of 2025!

This is a bit further out than our original scope estimates, and this is not a decision we made lightly. We have come to this date believing in making a successful second Season, providing the best experience possible; meaning not only introducing the features to address feedback, but also ensuring it’s as solid a release as possible, alongside efforts to catch up on previous “bug debt”.

We’ll continue exploring the new and exciting features coming in Season 2 over the coming months via dedicated feature Blog Posts, Eterra Monthly wrap-ups, and Making Last Epoch behind-the-scenes blogs. These will provide breakdowns of how the features work and insight into the design behind the features. We’re incredibly excited to start sharing in-depth details of all the great things coming and can’t wait for you to join us in Season 2.

While there are still a few weeks to go, we know this will be a popular post in December, so we want to take this opportunity to wish everyone Happy Holidays for the coming season!

Modelling Last Epoch | From Idea to Implementation
Hello again Travelers! We’re back with our second Making Last Epoch blog post and today we are joined by Wellington Weishaupt, our 3D Modelling Manager! He’ll be sharing some insight into the process behind creating the in game models for the Acolyte’s Necropolis Gear and the Ronin MTX, from ideation to creation to implementation. Over to you Wellington!

Concept? Art!





Everything starts with a concept or idea that should be modelled, rigged, animated and, later on, implemented into the game where players will be able to put their hands on it. Some concepts or ideas might need adjustments during each stage in order to work properly in game, from both a visual and technical perspective, in order to reach the best quality possible while respecting all the limitations.

I will be using two gear sets I really enjoyed working on, the Necropolis gear for Acolyte as well as the Ronin MTX Set, as examples to show the different stages of the processes armor models go through in order to get them up and running in game.

From Paper to Pixel



Taking the 2D concept to 3D model


Once a concept is approved, we have the green light to start putting our digital clay together. The first task is moving vertices around, sculpting to make a dense 3D mesh referred to as high poly, this model should hold all the main information translated from the 2D concept. During this stage some design decisions can still happen, for example if there are objects that could limit the movement from our character causing trouble with the animations or making it look off.

The main focus while working on a high poly model is silhouette, the big and medium shapes that give us the right flow, proportions and later on small details such as imperfection on materials, broken parts, and so on.


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As we can see above with the Necropolis Set, we have many phases until the High Poly work is done. Sometimes, big changes happen to a design if issues are found during experimentation or simply because something wouldn’t work well in game.

We can see an example of that on the Ronin Set below, which had a few things changed but kept the same ideas. There were some parts that would clash visually in the game at certain camera angles, as too much information would break the visual flow, as well as cause distortions when animated. The ‘mouth area’ on the waist of the original design was one of those parts.





Game Model (re)Creation




Triangles all the way down


After all the high poly work is done, we still need to do some extra work on this model, reconstructing it and adapting it in order to make it ready for animation as well as optimizing it for use in game. This process of reconstruction is called retopology where, poly by poly, a new mesh will be built up above the high poly mesh.

Hold there, I know it sounds complicated but we can uncomplicate it!

A high poly mesh is usually made of hundreds of millions (yes, you read that right) of triangles which can not be used in game. As we can see in the image below, on the left the Ronin Sets pauldron high poly has an ultra dense mesh with all the hand sculpted details, meanwhile on the right we have the final low poly model reconstructed with fewer triangles.

The first thought that comes to mind is that the low poly looks boring now and has lost all the magic details which brings us to the next stage of the process - Baking!




Baking Last Epoch




Cooking up a storm


With our game mesh optimized we now need to transfer all the information we sculpted on the high poly mesh to our low poly mesh, this process is called baking. With that in place we can work on colors, materials and textures for the assets, however there still another step to prepare our low poly model to receive all this information. This stage is called UV Mapping, it is where we make cuts and unfold our 3D model in a 2D space which can store all the textures in different maps, for example one map will hold colors, another map will store how glossy or metallic surfaces are, so that we can have control over the materials.







After all the pieces have their UVs properly opened and organized we are able to transfer those heavy details to our game mesh and finally work on the textures, below you can see that nothing from our high poly mesh was lost.




Texturing



I have a good feeling about this...

The texturing stage is a very important part of the process in order to convey the correct vision for the materials or tell a story about the assets. We usually try to treat the materials by considering what use it has had by the character and what it has faced during that time.

This is usually a fun part to work on! Sometimes information we add can trigger a lot of ideas even if that something is not that clear at first, for example having some areas with wet blood and some areas where blood appears dry, makes us imagine how over time the character has faced many battles but still faces many more ahead.





Rendered Speechless



You spin me right round


Once everything is finished we record the models rotating in a scene with different light conditions. Turntables not only are a way of showing a final piece but also a great way to observe and make decisions on which parts we can still improve even more.






Thank you to Wellington for such an in depth and awesome look at the work they and their team put in to Making Last Epoch the game we all love. Also thank you travelers for joining us, I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did!

Let us know which teams you want to hear from in future posts and we’ll do our best to wrangle them 😊 Have a great day and safe journeys through Eterra!

Averielle

Eterra Monthly: November 2024 Edition
Travelers, another month has come and gone and it is now time for a look at what’s happening. Let’s dive into our third installment of, Eterra Monthly!

Eyes on Eterra



Travelers, we’ve said it so often it hardly needs repeating, but the feedback we receive is so critical to the decisions we make in the studio. So, please continue to share your thoughts and ideas with us no matter how big or small. An incredibly long list of this feedback is already in the works and being morphed from idea to reality. While the list is far too long to include in this article, we can share a few items on the road to reality.

Comparing Off-hand Feature



The inventory UI is getting some new features we hope you will enjoy. One UI function that has been asked for is the ability to compare items against your equipped Off-Hand or 2nd Ring slot. We hope this new feature will provide a smoother gearing experience.

Boss Ward



Recent feedback regarding Boss Ward has been fairly substantial. Whether you find yourself on the side of approval or not, the team has worked to balance the effect of Boss Ward. With the release of Harbingers of Ruin -update, we replaced Dynamic Damage Reduction with a Boss Ward mechanic, and have read all your feedback on the change. We'll be doing some adjustments to the Boss Ward mechanic in Season 2 by reducing how often players encounter it during campaign and in the endgame. Only enemies that feel like should have it, will have it, such as chapter bosses in campaign and more notable bosses like Dungeon and Timeline bosses. Boss Ward will no longer appear on Exiled Mages, Nemeses or mini bosses. On top of that, we are also adjusting the decay rate to be faster. The decision came as a direct result to player data in 1.1.

Evade Improvements



A fairly obnoxious and deadly bug involving the Evade skill, where using the skill could incorrectly queue another use of it and immediately return you to your original location, when the player only wanted to use it once. The team has been working on solving this issue and, in an effort to make the mechanic worth while, they have been working on a few new quality of life changes. They've been working on making Evade more responsive at higher latency, improving animations, and fixing bugs. Thanks to these changes, Evade will be more consistent and feel more responsive to use.

Dungeon Key Inventory UI



Keys are getting their own stash-wide dedicated storage that can hold an unlimited number of keys. This new function will allow players to always have the right keys on them without taking up standard inventory space. Subsequently, this also means keys won’t take up space in your stash tabs either.

With just a short window between now and Q1 2025, you can expect some pretty substantial improvements to Last Epoch in Season 2. A launch date for Season 2 is still in discussion but a date reveal should be on its way very soon.

Last Epoch started as an ARPG made by ARPG players, exactly as we wanted ARPGs to be played. Nearly 8 years later and this is still the core of EHG’s drive. Keep your attention on our Forums to get a first look at new features and improvements coming your way.

Twitch Updates



The poll is over! You spoke, we listened and emotes have been forged. Here are some teasers to tide you over until Mike’s next stream!

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Mike's Teaser's of the Month



Mike’s Dev Streams have always been filled with the best kind of leaks, so let’s review the November Twitch Stream Teasers.

11-1-24



Mike was rather tight lipped in the beginning of the month and brought a singular teaser to the stream. A taste of something new for the Void Knight.



11-8-24



The following week was geared toward clearing up some misinterpretations. The previously revealed node was thought by players to be an Anomaly node. We hope this was cleared up and has been confirmed to be a node for Volatile Reversal.

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11-15-24



The third week of November, Mike showcased two new nodes for Sentinel’s Vengeance skill.

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11-22-24



On the 4th week, Mike was joined by Community Manager Wick on stream where the pair played some Last Epoch and answered questions from the community. During the stream, Mike revealed 4 new and updated nodes for a handful of classes; followed by a new masked character he did not say a word about.

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Build Spotlight



The team is putting on their dancing shoes and lashing out with this month’s Community Build Spotlight!



Wander explains that this build is Crit focused, and as we see it, you’ll be literally dancing between skills to maximize its potential. They explain that to get the most out of this build you’ll need to use Dancing Strikes between EVERY button press to keep your Rhythm stacks going, creating an infinite amount of mana. Wander does mention in the review video that this build is still a work in progress but that just means you’ll have some wiggle room to dance to your own music. The build features the skills, Dancing Strikes, Shift, Shadow Cascade, and Synchronized Strike. The build guide on Last Epoch Tools also features Umbral blades, but according to the video review, this is not necessary, leaving the 5th and final skill up to you. We love a flexible build.

As far as gear is concerned, Wander recommends a Traitor’s Tongue with 12 or 13 base Crit Chance, and +2 Dexterity. The rest of the affixes on it are just nice to have, so play around with them. Next on the list is a Shattered Chains with some cooldown recovery speed. You’ll also want a Smoke Weaver for Dodge rating. Wander says other daggers work too, but has found the Smoke Weaver to be the best option thus far. Next you’re going to need to find a few items that grant Increased Damage per Shadow with Shadow Cascade, or Increased Damage of Attacks by Shadows. These affixes can pop up on a few different items so you’ll have options. Boots are going to be a tough one. Wander shows off a pair of Lessons of the Metropolis that they just got lucky with, but the focus was T7 Movement Speed, and increased Crit. Finally, a Syphon of Anguish for Doom application is really going to tie all of this together.

It’s a bit of a list, I know, but the results are worth the effort. Wander was far more detailed in their explanation in the video, so I highly recommend watching it through and diving into this build to try it for yourself.

Meet the Team Spotlight



This month I had the pleasure of sitting down with Fritz Dittmer; the Senior Technical Environment Artist on Last Epoch. We discussed the finer points of his career and the steps that brought him to our studio.



Tell us a little bit about yourself and your role in the studio.

Initially I was brought on as part of the level design team, and was going to help with layout levels and start that process of building things. It was chapter 8 and it was like, “Hey, we need all hands on deck. We’re shipping the Lagon boss fight and we’ve got to get people in to build the levels.” I kind of got in when things were chaotic, and it was like “I can do level design stuff.” and “Look, I can help and build these environments out.” It’s funny, because so many of the levels have changed and been updated because I started in level design. I did a bit of work in shaders, and kept kind of building that side of things which is where the technical art kind of comes in. Then just building assets out as we needed them and creating levels.

What initially drew you to environment art, and how did you develop your technical skill set in this field?

It’s a lot of the “find out” half of the “Mess around” process really. I went to school for animation and game dev, and was very ambitious. At that point I was kind of just a 3d generalist without a solid sense of direction or specific position I wanted I found myself drawn to the procedural asset generation and the technical problem solving it presented. Then I got in with a bunch of architecture geeks and I’m like, “Oh, you can do some really cool stuff with design.” Dark Souls 3 came out and I was like, “Oh, my eyes are open I’m just gonna look and stare at all of the stuff.”I loved trying to reverse engineer all of the amazing stuff in the games I loved. It’s funny because for a while I was starting to develop a little bit of a reputation as the guy who’s just staring at a wall while my team mates rushed ahead. People are charging through, trying not to die and I’m just here staring at the wall trying to figure out the parallax texture, and how they got that depth, what they’re doing, where the geometry is. Now that I think about it, I lost incalculable time to Halo Reach and its map editor; just making that stuff for my friends. That was probably the very first dabble into Level Design.

What’s a particular environment you’ve created that you’re especially proud of, and what unique challenges did it pose?

Oh my gosh, there are so many, but I think the one that I think about the most is definitely in Last Epoch, and it’s Majasan Heights, where you steal the giant bird. Originally, we didn’t have the tech to make you walk on something that’s moving. It was one of those, “Okay, I know we have the whole fighting a god later, but hijacking the giant bird is the coolest and most memorable part of that chapter.” I was viscerally upset when they said, “We’ll just fade to black, have a “caw” and the sound of something getting shot down.” I was like, no, so I ended up just finding a random crow model and sized it up to scale so you could be on its back. Then I built a support platform and this whole jig of trying to essentially fit the bird under something that rotates under the player. The player is actually completely static, we’ve just got wind particles and stuff flying in the way. The way I ended up selling it to both the level design lead and the project manager was just “Here’s the clip of Futurama where they realize the ship isn’t moving, the universe moves around the ship.” My project manager gave me a "if you have extra time moments and if you think you can make it happen, do your best. I don’t think anyone believed I could pull it off and that’s what makes it so sweet to go back and be like, “I did it.”

How do you strike a balance between visual quality and performance when building environments, especially on limited hardware?

Well, a lot of it is just building smarter, it’s all about draw calls. Essentially, every material and every new object or mesh gets a draw call, and the more draw calls you have the slower your game. There are also systems that let you scatter things and kind of rearrange stuff in a performant way but it comes down to finding ways to not calculate things. Instead of having one blade of grass with as few polygons as possible, you reduce your draw calls by grouping a bunch of blades of grass together into one object. It’s great for visual cohesion, as well as making stuff more unique and feel actually Last Epoch, but having things made specifically for that kind of set. Like the Imperial City is all one set of meshes and one material. So instead of having dozens of draw calls were able to cut it down and just have really good looking assets that also match with the enemies.

What tools, software, or techniques do you find are “Must Haves” in creating immersive game environments?

Of course the obvious, whatever you use to make a Filmbox file, your game engine, and then honestly, finding good post processing. Basically, knowing how to use your engine efficiently so it’s burning the ins and outs. Prefabs with Unity and prefab variants is something I’m always pushing for and making progress on. But really, it’s the lighting plugins in the post processing that really make the difference between an okay looking asset and something that’s just 10 out of 10. We do also have in house tech artists that have put really cool tools together, but honestly, the difference between an okay looking game and a great looking game is cohesive visuals, lighting, and post processing to make that happen. For example, for fog you have to make the air feel like it’s around you because otherwise you’re walking around in a vacuum. You’ve got to make it look like there’s air, and a lot of that comes from volumetrics and tech like wind shaders, where you can use your vegetation to sway in the wind and have it all match. It’s really the icing on the cake, that last 20%, that makes makes a world of difference.

Can you walk us through a problem-solving moment where you had to innovate to achieve a specific visual or technical effect?

Honestly, I was really proud of this one, but for the bazaar there’s lots of weapons vendors and I really wanted to avoid the “We have swords here.” and then they’re the same. Every time I wanted it to be like, here’s weapons and here’s a big umbrella stand full of spears or axes or whatever it needed to be. I wanted it to change dynamically. make it feel like it was an active shop that lived changed and existed when you weren’t around. I needed a way for the weapons to change between visits. I was looking into ways to find if there’s a plugin that will do this for us. Can we build some code that will do it? Then I realized, “Oh, wait, you can set particles to have an infinite lifetime and it can spawn whatever mesh or material we have.” It will just populate those and have them be stationary. So, a lot of what you can see the vendor selling in the bazaar is a particle system. So, every time you reload the scene, it reloads the particles with a different seed and gives you a different arrangement of weapons. So, that was fun and I started using stuff like that all over the place.

How do you ensure that your environments support gameplay and storytelling, not just aesthetics?

I did a lot of studies of concept art from Blizzard, they did a fantastic job of blocking their values for the past two/three years at this point. So much of it is actually going in and making sure that the floor is both interesting (textures, vegetation) but also is blocked out in a way that, in grayscale, the character and their abilities are standing out. There’s always, with different sets, different interpretations but generally I try to keep the floor as close to a pure white value as possible and push the walls to have a little more noise. This is because player isn’t going to be lost in all of that extra detail so you can push more assets and more interesting stuff up against the wall. It’s just blocking it so that the character always stands out. You just try and simplify everything while giving it enough. It’s that kind of impression of detail where you have low contrast.

Do you take inspiration from any particular sources you’re fond of?

I think I come up with my best ideas when I’m just going on walks and giving myself the time to kind of zone out but still sort of be present. I think when it comes to storytelling as well, like fiction will never be as crazy, stupid, hilarious, and fun as real life stuff. So I try to go out and find weird, wacky or fun stuff and that’s where most of my phone’s memory goes. Heck, I even found some really cool berries the other day where I just thought, “Why do these have a shell of spikes? I don’t know, they’re really pretty and also look like they could kill me on multiple fronts…. Maybe this can be used in the ancient era.” I think there’s a lot that can be learned from other video games and I’m a sucker for Dark Souls, especially the way they do that twisted gothic horror, but there is really something about getting out and just seeing it in real life.

How do you approach collaboration with other departments, like level design or lighting, to bring a cohesive vision to life?

What the Level Design Lead and I do is: I have a scene, I do X amount of stuff on the scene, and then I get to a point where I’m like, “Okay, I think I like it, but I’m starting to hit a wall. Hey, do you want to take it?” So we end up swapping scenes and that gives us a good point where we can be inspired by each other. I’ve learned that even just having working sessions has been really helpful for me as far as getting that feeling of inspiration. Recently with some of the new tooling we’re doing, I’ve been sitting down and just saying “Hey, this is annoying to work with. What do we think of this?” Honestly, being in the same scene and seeing what other people are doing has been probably the most important part of collaborating. Sometimes you look over and you see something weird is happening but it’s cool, so you take a look back and think, “Oh, I like this. This gives me an idea for this other situation.”. Also being open to feedback, to any kind of input, and letting people go wild with your ideas. I’ve had some cases where it’s like, “I really, really love this. If anyone touches this, I think I’ll be heartbroken.” But then someone touches it and comes back with an even cooler version of it. And I’m like, “Now I’m inspired. Can I do a little more polish here?”.

What’s a technique or project that challenged you and led to significant growth in your career as a technical artist?

All of the above, literally everything in my career has been new challenges. When I first got on the team, I was not used to being on a headset in a work context and being the “expert” in the room. That was something to get used to, like, “Oh, wait, I might know what I’m doing. This is unusual… People trust me… What’s happening?”. I don’t notice the growth until I look back and realize, I’ve come very far. Each day is really just another day to get out there and do cool stuff and reach for the sky, and eventually you’re on the top of the mountain.

What tips or advice would you give to junior artists who want to improve their technical skills in environment creation?

Do stupid stuff, no preconceived notions, just try it. Have someone that you could pass off work with and that you enjoy collaborating with. I think if you enjoy what you’re doing and you find yourself gravitating towards it, just follow that. Find a community of people that will give you feedback, even if it’s hard, and you can give them that same level of feedback. It’s important to be able give and receive feedback, not even only in a positive way, but being able to be in that creative and collaborative environment. That’s where I started improving the most. I was following the dopamine, doing what was really cool to me and with a supportive group that would help me. They’d point out where I’m doing stuff wrong, where I’m making my life harder and for myself. That was the first thing the Level Design Lead really taught me. “Hey, if you were organized and go into it smarter, everything will be much easier.”

Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers?

I love hearing the feedback. It’s so fantastic to see how much love and support we’ve gotten as the game has grown throughout the whole thing, especially the early days. People were so understanding of where we were as a team. They were just there and supportive and that felt amazing and it made me want to make cool stuff because, cool stuff isn’t cool unless you have people to show it to. Thank y’all for all the support and love for Last Epoch.

Discord Fun



November began with a few late entries to the October festivities, but we’re happy to share them with you all here! Last Epoch has become such a beloved world in our community, a few decided to share it with the world in their own pumpkin carvings.



The original Last Epoch logo was carved by Vezidoroga on our official discord. They have been perfecting their skills for several years and we are honored to have been chosen this year. This carving came with a wood craft project hot on its heels, which Vezidoroga is hard at work on as we speak.

Our very own Server Cryptid joined in on the carving celebration with their own Gregory the Gourd! It goes without saying just how happy our intern was to “pose for the pumpkin” and have his likeness etched into this lovely decoration.



Following the Immortal Uprising Event, players strut their stuff with the Immortal Emperor’s crown in their very own impromptu Last Epoch fashion show. Players mixed and matched their MTX with the crown in an effort to find the best combination to show off their hard work.

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If you haven’t joined our official Discord, it’s not too late. Come join in on the fun and hang out with other travelers like yourself. Also, if you haven’t collected your Emperor’s Crown MTX, it’s free in the MTX shop waiting for you!

A Taste of Eterra



A cryptic character visited the studio this month. They didn’t say much, just sort of stood in the doorway surrounded by flares of void energy. It was an incredibly strange encounter. When they left, one of the interns found a recipe on the floor so we collectively agreed, “What’s the worst that could happen?” and we gave it a shot. The result was an absolutely wonderful dish we feel compelled to share with you. Especially with the holidays right around the corner, we hope this one will find it’s way to your table this year.

Epoch Berry Pie




  • 1 Frozen Pie Crust
  • 1 sheet of flat pie crust dough (for topping)
  • 2 lbs. blueberries , fresh
  • 2/3 cup white sugar, heaping
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • zest of 1/2 a lemon
  • 1/4 tsp Cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp All Spice
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1 Tbsp of butter, cut into small pieces
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 Tbsp Heavy Cream
  • coarse sugar, for topping


Pie filling:


  1. Rise the blueberries and gently pat them dry.
  2. Combine all the dry ingredients, including the zest, and toss in the blueberries to coat them all evenly.
  3. Transfer into the pie crust and put into the fridge to keep it cool


Assemble:


  1. Print and cut out the Epoch Template provided.
  2. Roll out the dough sheet on a lightly floured surface to prevent sticking, and lay the prepared template on top.
  3. Use a sharp knife or pastry cutter to trace around the template and lay it on top of the prepared pie.
  4. Cut the butter into small cubes, about 1/4 to 1/2 inch and distribute them evenly over the exposed filling.
  5. Whisk together the yolk and cream for an egg wash, brush it over the crust and then sprinkle the coarse sugar all over.


  • IMPORTANT: You’ll want to put the pie back in the fridge for at least 10 minutes before baking.


Bake:


  1. Make sure the oven rack is on the lower part of the oven (like the lower third) and put a baking sheet with nothing on it in there.
  2. Preheat to 400°.
  3. Put the pie on the baking sheet that had been heating up inside with it and bake for approx. 20 min.
  4. Reduce the temperature to 350° and bake for about 40 more minutes.
  5. Keep your eye on the pie for the last 10 min of that 40, you’ll know the pie is done when it’s edges are golden brown and the filling is bubbling a bunch.
  6. If the crust is browning too fast, but the filling is not bubbling, cover the edges with aluminum foil and keep your eye on the filling portion instead.
  7. After it’s done let it cool down for at least 2 hours (3 hours is best)
  8. Serve and enjoy!




What’s Next



While we may not always have something we are prepared to share, you can sleep soundly knowing we are always working on something for you. With that said, I’ve collected a touch of new information straight from our dev team for you this month.

Thanks to Mike’s teasers it was revealed that Volatile Reversal, the time bending Void Knight skill, is getting some much needed attention in Season 2. According to reports, the skill will be transformed into a combo in which the first time you cast it, it will hurl you forward in time to a targeted location. Recasting it again within 3 second will wrench you back to your original location. Both the leap forward and leap back will launch a devastating attack upon landing.

This change comes with reduced mana cost and cooldown so it can become a new source of damage. Due to these changes, the team has also placed the Volatile Reversal skill tree, and several others, under the microscope and have made a large number of node adjustments to better suit the skills new functionality. While the details are still mostly under lock and key, I was able to collect a few new skill tree nodes for all you theory crafters out there.

A few of the new nodes are:

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Now, please keep in mind these are only a few of the nodes being added to the Volatile Reversal skill tree; there are heaps more and all with brand new effects to twist the skill to your will.

With all of these new changes, it’s important to know this is one skill on a long list of adjustments being made. The team has also considered the effects this change will make across other skills in all three Sentinel class trees where Volatile Reversal would have created a lack of power in its absence. That now missing power has been added back to the other skills and passive trees in various ways to give them the strength they deserve. Because of this, Volatile Reversal can stand on its own as a skill. Originally it provided so much power to other skills, it felt necessary to use even if it didn’t feel great.

Closing remarks



There is always something happening in Last Epoch. With the holidays quickly approaching and great things on our horizon, The team would like to wish you all, in advance, a heartfelt thank you for your support and a Happy Holidays. With that in mind, the team would like to let you all know that our December Edition of Eterra Monthly will be releasing on January 3rd rather than December 31st, to allow everyone time with their families as we enter the New Year.

This has been Eterra Monthly; a report on the happenings and changes in the world of Last Epoch. We hope you have enjoyed this month’s report and will see you all again soon

Last Epoch Soundtrack Available!
Hello Travelers,

We are pleased to announce that the Last Epoch Soundtrack is available for players who purchased the Deluxe or Ultimate Edition of Last Epoch, purchased the Deluxe or Ultimate upgrade packs and Kickstarter backers who bought the Ancient Warrior (Alpha) or Ardent Gladiator (Beta) supporter packs or above. This Soundtrack includes 32 brilliant tracks from our fantastic composer Erik Desiderio!

The Soundtrack can be found in your Last Epoch DLC in Steam if you have the following versions of the game;


  • Players who purchased the Deluxe or Ultimate upgrades from our In-Game Store
  • Players who purchased the Deluxe or Ultimate Editions of the game, including players who purchased the Deluxe or Ultimate upgrades, on Steam


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For those received the Soundtrack via their Kickstarter Backer pack (Ancient Warrior (Alpha) or Ardent Gladiator (Beta) supporter packs or above), you can access the soundtrack by opening your game directory folder and locating the Last Epoch Soundtrack folder.

To locate your game directory you can right-click on Last Epoch in your Steam Library, click ‘Properties’, choose ‘Installed Files’ and then the ‘Browse Button’.

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If you are Offline, please go Online in Steam and make sure your game is up to date!

If you purchased any of the following versions and cannot locate your Soundtrack files please reach out to our Support Team with proof of purchase;


  • Deluxe or Ultimate Edition
  • Deluxe or Ultimate Upgrade
  • Kickstarter Ancient Warrior (Alpha), Ardent Gladiator (Beta) supporter packs or above


Track List




1: Last Epoch Theme
2: Burning Forest
3: In Preparation
4: Keepers Camp
5: Escape from the Fortress Vaults
6: What She Left to Remember
7: Fires Before Dawn
8: Bastion of the Sun
9: War Machines of Solarum
10: Eterra
11: Highlands
12: Ascending the Summit
13: Inferno and Fury
14: The End of Time
15: Crystal Mines: Crystal Lotus
16: Shattered Remains
17: The Temple of Eterra
18: Twisted Fire
19: The Precipice
20: Above the Black
21: The Council Chambers
22: The Sheltered Wood
23: The Surface
24: The Forsaken Trail
25: The Ritual Site
26: Ruins of Welryn
27: Shadows Whisper
28: Guardian of Ruins
29: Welryn Undercity
30: The Courtyard
31: The Ulatri Cliffs
32: The End of Ruin

We want to thank all of our players for their continued support and we hope that the stirring choral refrain, sung in Old Norse, of ‘Fyoern Oowled’ from the Last Epoch Theme guides you through your daily challenges as it does through Eterra.

Eterra Monthly: Oct. 2024 Edition
Welcome Travelers to the Eterra Monthly October 2024 Edition!

We’ve got a fully loaded report for you today, so buckle up, and let’s get started.

A New Dawn for the People



The Immortal Emperor’s campaign for power has been halted. As immortal soldiers occupied Eterra, a large resistance was staged to fight back. The battle began on September 19th and raged until October 20th. This resistance has since succeeded against the occupying undead army, and the Immortal Empire was forced to retreat. Resistance leader Yulia had this to say,

“The travelers are a force to be reckoned with and they are here to stay. The Emperor is welcome to press his influence whenever he wishes, but we will always push back!”

Our reporters attempted to reach her for further comment but have yet to receive anything more. The travelers who fought so tirelessly found a way to rub salt in the immortal wound, by claiming replicas of the Emperor’s own Crown and have been flaunting them before him. The Emperor however, was conveniently unavailable for comment. Is this the last we will see of the Immortal Empire’s forces? Only time will tell.



Patch Review



October 20th marked the end of the Immortal Uprising Event and the battle was incredible! Travelers from around the world came together and duked it out with the Emperor’s forces including a new type of soldier, The Loyalist Undead. An elite unit of the skeleton army that packed a punch and everyone felt it. As the event came to a close, Travelers have been encouraged to check the Cosmetic Shop for a free gift for their efforts, stashed within. If you haven’t collected your own Immortal Crown, it’s not too late. This item will remain available to all event participants, free of charge.

With the end of the event came Patch 1.1.7.6. The new patch reverted a handful of changes made available by the event, and adjusted the effects of several others. For full details, read the Patch Notes Here .

Hotfix Rollout



Patch 1.1.7 was given a small hotfix for the month of October titled, “Hotfix 1.1.7.7.”
It was treated as an addendum to patch 1.1.7.6. The hotfix note reads as follows:

• Fixed an issue that would cause the Felled Woods terrain to load incorrectly

As the issue was not accompanied by any additional fixes, the information was later added to the end of the 1.1.7.6 patch notes, rather than being given it’s own page on the Forums.

Eyes on Eterra



And now for an Osprix eye view of things happening in Eterra. Over in the Felled woods, our weather team has noticed an anomaly involving thick fog and an ethereal floor causing a bit of a stir. Traveler’s are encouraged to… Wait… I’m getting word that the fog is clearing and the ground has returned to its original solid state. Well Traveler, feel free to explore to your heart’s content. We apologize for the false alarm. On to more pressing news.

Several teams have come together with a few ideas regarding Twitch Subscription rewards they feel are a little over due. The team has put out a voter’s poll found HERE . Players are encouraged to cast their votes in regards to what they would like to have access to during Twitch streams. This poll will be open until November 11, 2024 11:00 AM CT after which it will be locked and the team will get to work adding the winning Emotes to the channel.

Build Spotlight



Travelers it’s that time again where we cast one of your builds in the Spotlight of Glory! This month we have something to warm up your gameplay after chilling out with the White Walker build last month.
This month’s spotlight goes to…



The Smelter’s Wrath Worldsplitter Forge Guard is a hard hitting, Harbinger deleting, Tank doused in napalm. Unlike the White Walker Cryosplosion that focused on stacking Frostbite, Smelter’s Wrath consumes enemies in a cone of fire, doubling your armor, and increases it’s own range the longer it charges. Couple this with smashing a Worldsplitter into a legendary 2-handed axe that increases Fire Melee damage, and Mana as well as mana regen, and your Forge Guard will be a walking combustion engine, melting its foes with minimal effort.

Now this build does benefit from a few other important items such as Titan Heart, Shattered Chains, Siphon of Anguish, and Eterra’s Path, but the rest is really up to you. This does require some extra effort in item farming as opposed to the showcase from last month, but we think that’s what makes this build shine; showing the power of both gameplay preferences.

You can check out the Build Guide Showcase by Dr3adful and hear more about it in their own words. The Build guide has also been made available on Lastepochtools.com so feel free to dig around and light the fires for your own Smelter’s Wrath.

Meet the Team



You, the players, have asked and we delivered. You may have seen us showcase a handful of our EHG staff on social media, but we’ve decided to expand on this initiative a little more, just for you. I got the opportunity this month to sit down with David Chen, one of the Producers here at EHG. David has been with EHG for about a year and a half, and he was more than happy to talk about his role in the studio.

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Tell us a little about your job and what it includes.
I’m a producer here at EHG, basically that comes down to making sure that the features we work on get done. So, it’s a lot of planning, organizing, making sure people are doing what they need to be doing, and making sure that bottlenecks and obstacles are taken care of.

What inspired you to get into game development, and how did you end up at this studio?
Well, the studio is a different question, I think, apart from getting into games in general. Getting into games: basically at school, when I was in college, I was an electrical engineering major with a software focus. Then I was looking for jobs and I just found an opening for an engineer at a game company called Stormfront Studios. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can do games for a living.” Because, you know, I grew up playing games and always loved it. So, I applied for that, I got it, and I’ve pretty much been in the games industry ever since.

For EHG specifically, at the time I was just looking for a good position and a good place that I could join, and EHG popped up. I checked the game out. It was awesome that it was already in early access so I could actually just play the game and see where things were. I was really impressed by the game and met with the people. They seemed like a great group of people to work with and it just happened to work out.

How does working at an indie studio differ from working at a larger studio?
I’ve actually found that the indie studio is not so different from a big studio where I’ve also worked. I think a lot of it just depends on how the teams are built. For some reason, the team here at EHG is relatively similar. The big difference is the remote aspect of it. I found just making a game remote is so different from when everyone is at a physical studio at the same time. That communication is just a very different vibe and on top of that, we’re distributed around the globe. The team chemistry and the bonding is very different. You can’t just turn around and talk to someone and ask a question. You’ve gotta ping them, hope that they’re online, and look at your pings at the same time to get an immediate response. You just have to adjust how you work a little bit differently.

How do you balance working from home with your home life?
I think it’s just a matter of being responsible for a lot of it, right? I mean, the nice thing about going into work is you go home and it can be a clear delineation between work and home life. It’s very different when you’re always checking Slack for work and I think a lot of that’s just the decision you make for yourself of like, “All right, this is how I’m going to draw my boundaries for work life balance.” and it’s very much on you. Hopefully, you’ve got a manager who understands and is on the same wave length as you in terms of when you’re on, when you’re off, and it’s kind of the expectations of the job.

For me, it’s worked out pretty well. I find that I’m pleased with both my work life and my home life right now. So, I think whatever balance it is that I figured out, it’s at least working for me.

How do you balance creativity with practical constraints like time, budget, or technical limitations?
My role as a producer, I find works a lot better when I approach it from a practical standpoint. We have so many just amazingly talented, creative people that I let them ask to do the creative side of things. It’s on our designers and our creative folks to ask for crazy ass stuff. That’s how you achieve greatness, by not caring about how hard something is or how long something’s going to take, because it gets the conversation started.

But there has to be that balance, in terms of making sure we can actually get the work done on time; that we’re not completely rearchitecting the game to get something done. And so I bring that counterweight to the creative side of things. And if you set it up with a team of people, where that conversation is open, that it’s not antagonistic, then you realize that everyone’s working towards making a great game. Then you find that balance in between, and you’re able to come up with something that is awesome, is fun, and doesn’t burn out the team to get done and keeps the game stable. All the things that have to be kept in mind in addition to “How awesome would this be?”

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned while working in indie game development?
I think it all comes down to communication. So, communicate often, communicate early is really something that just kind of works both in life as well; but certainly in games. You need everyone to be on the same page. Everyone needs to reach alignment and if you can do that, then you’ll be in pretty good shape. Related to that also is to be honest. You can do that without being cruel. If something isn’t working, if a deadline isn’t going to be reached, if something painful is coming up, it still behooves you to be honest and open about it as early as possible because it gives the team a chance to react to it. The longer you put it off, the harder it is to do something about it. So, you really gotta bite the bullet and just make things clear from the beginning that, if something’s going wrong, you have to communicate it. So, that’s something I found. It’s better to be honest than to try to spare feelings by hiding it. You don’t want to do that. In my role especially, a lot of what I try to do is let the whole team know “This is what we’re doing. This is why we’re doing it.” Give them an opportunity to respond. You want to communicate it as many times as you can, because everyone takes information in differently. And that’s kind of it. Just communicate, let people know what’s going on and, you’ll be in pretty good shape.

How do you stay motivated and creative, especially during long or difficult projects?
For me, it really just helps to have good people. I thought, at least in my career, that if I like the people I’m working with, then that is really what motivates me to want to continue to do a good job, to do right by them. More so than anything else, It helps out Last Epoch. It’s a fun game. I don’t play all the games that I work on in my spare time but, certainly I do with Last Epoch because it’s just a fun game at the end of the day. But really it’s the people and knowing that I’m helping them succeed; and that’s kind of where I get my kicks.

What kind of feedback from players do you find most helpful or motivating?
I like a healthy dialogue of “You guys are doing great.” That certainly helps motivate you to know that you’re in the right direction. I think constructive feedback is always useful because we recognize the game’s not perfect. There are problems with it and it’s good to know what people think we should be focusing on. It depends on how it’s worded; it helps if you can be honest without being a dick about it and so I think that as long as you do that, it’s always great to hear from the players. You assume positive intent, right? You know that they’re trying to make the game better. They want to have fun with it and we want them to have a good time also.

What’s a feature or design choice you’re particularly proud of in one of the games you’ve worked on?
Most of what my job is has been outside of the creative side of things. Really, whenever the game gets out the door on time and in a fun state. If the game shifts and if we were able to ship most of what we wanted to in it, then that gives me a good sense of satisfaction.

What advice would you give someone who wants to get into this industry?
You’ve got to work well with others, I think, is really what it comes down to at the end of the day. You can be the best engineer, the best artist, the best whatever, but if you’re a jerk and no one wants to work with you, dude, you make it so hard. It’s a team effort and you’ve got to be a team player if you want to make a game with a group of people. Obviously, technical acumen and being good at your job is certainly important, but I think even more important is the culture fit. You want to be someone that people want to work with.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers?
Just, really, thanks for playing the game. We see the appreciation and love that we actually get from the community, and it feels really good. And if it’s making you happy, then we’ve done our job right.

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A big thanks again to David Chen for talking with us. Join us to meet a new member of the EHG studio every month, and get an inside look at what it’s like to be a part of Eleventh Hour Games.


This has been Eterra Monthly, a report on the happenings and changes in the world of Last Epoch. If you’ve made it this far and are enjoying Last Epoch, we ask that you please take a moment to leave us an honest review on Steam. We hope you have enjoyed this month’s report and will see you all again soon!
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