On this day of days, we're excited to announce Shores Unknown: The Old Guard. Inspired by classic RPGs of our youth: experience the lush world of Shores Unknown like never before!
Watch the teaser trailer below: [previewyoutube="scdB3stjDUg;full"]
Other than that, the first content update is still being worked on and is actually shaping to be even bigger than expected, bringing not just Archery, but a whole new magical ability group with it called Conjuration.
From arcane shields, to summoned servants and magic missiles: we hope you'll have as much fun using these spells as we had designing them!
We'll be announcing the release date for the update very soon, so stay tuned!
Finally, a reminder that for a limited time, you can still get the game with a 15% discount - the offer lasts until April 5 @ 8AM Pacific!
First Content Update Announcement and Spring Promotion
Hello, Mercenaries!
We're excited to announce that the first content update is close to finished and will be launching in the next few days.
The update will include the following additions and improvements:
A dozen of new contracts, introducing new locations, enemies and mechanics
Bow weapons and Archery ability group
New abilities to expand existing ability groups, such as Bardic Lore and Destruction
Modal passive abilities such as stances that can be toggled directly in combat
Combat difficulty setting
Major improvements to character pathing and collision in combat
And more!
Ready to give it a whirl?
To celebrate, the game will be available for purchase with a 15% discount for a limited time. Purchasing now will give you access to 6+ hours of playable content in the current version along with all the upcoming updates while the game is in Early Access. Don't miss out!
Update 0.7.0.5
Greetings, Mercenaries! Update 0.7.0.5 is now available to download. This one is focused on balance changes and fixes to major bugs, e.g. quest progression blockers, but it also adds some requested QoL features. Read on for the full notes!
Bug fixes
Fixed door in Merc Inn not being interactable under certain circumstances.
Resolved the issue with certain characters not being interactable or re-appearing upon loading into an area.
Fixed the issue with some side-quests being impossible to complete after a certain point in the game (Birgit should now revert to normal dialogue based on the player's side quest progress).
Percentage-based stats will now correctly be capped at 100%.
"A Man Who Cried Wolf" quest reward issue fixed (requires new game if quest already completed).
Fixed Reginald starting with incorrect XP value in 1H stance group.
Fixed incorrect settings for class abilities causing passives like Patience and Charge to be lost when switching classes.
Fixed cut-ins/defeat message staying behind when restarting and some other ultra-rare edge cases.
Fixed rare bug where a character would be skipped when reverting action and would not be able to re-assign order until next turn.
Fixed the calculation bug for buffs providing temporary increase to Engagement capacity, reapplying them will not drop the Engagement with one of the targets.
Multitude of fixes to collision, camera and cutscenes.
Fixed certain DoT debuffs (including Fireblast) incorrectly updating damage done.
UI/UX improvements
Auto Follow Cam toggle option added (On by default).
HP bars will now be shown in action phase when a character's HP changes.
Empty Engagement slots will now also be shown next to selected/targeted character portraits in combat.
Engagement break will now be shown as an icon on top of character portraits in the timeline (including enemies) Developer note: Engagement mechanic is at the core of our combat. Moving forward, we want to make it as clear as possible to the players who's engaging - or not engaging - whom, and showing who's about to break their Engagement is an important first step. We'll continue monitoring feedback and adjusting as necessary.
DoT damage spells will now show remaining damage as stacks.
Added Roadmap to title menu screen.
The game will now tell the player when the available main story content is finished.
Character codes (previously shown via numbers for NPC characters) will now be shown via letters to avoid confusing them with character levels.
Item changes
Fixed items using incorrect (outdated) scaling values: healer staff, forest staff. These two items were much stronger than most other weapons, including higher rarity ones. They have been adjusted to match their rarity. Don't worry, they're still good ;)
Old warrior axe - rarity changed to blue (Rare), stats increased accordingly.
Added a couple of new accessories, see if you can find them.
Minor balance tweaks to multiple other items.
Balance fixes
Balanced the difficulty in the majority of early game content. Fights will still vary in difficulty depending on what choices you make, but should all be possible to complete without relying on luck.
Iron Peak mines: Fixed an issue with the boss in Iron Peak mines not receiving a certain buff.
Iron Peak mines: Reduced overall damage dealt by trash mobs, but added some new abilities to compensate and make fights against them more interesting.
Mountain forest: Reduced the damage that the enemies deal, but increased defenses of some of the enemies.
Adjusted the difficulty of contracts.
Ability Changes And Fixes
Increased the acquisition speed of starting abilities in all weapon stance groups, but made high level abilities (Requiem, Execution etc.) harder to unlock. Developer note: We noticed an issue where the players would unlock a lot of powerful high-cost abilities quite early into the game, but would never actually use them because of their prohibitive costs. These abilities will now be available later in the game. On the other hand, switching weapon stances in early game should feel less punishing.
Character's Action Points now cap at 99.
Command and Alacrity buffs no longer stack with themselves.
One-Handed: Requiem animation restored.
One-Handed: Butterfly Evasion bonus down from 65% to 50%, now lasts a single turn.
One-Handed: Blink Strike now correctly affects Engagement. Tooltip updated to reflect that.
Two-Handed: Cleave AP cost reduced from 3 to 2.
Dual Wield: Flurry is no longer a generator.
Dual Wield: Alacrity now correctly states that it refunds AP cost on use.
Dual Wield: Double Strike is no longer a generator, but generates AP on critical hits. Damage scaling increased.
Dual Wield: Abilities now scale equally between Str and Vers.
Dual Wield: Blade Dance will now correctly affect the whole Engagement.
Dual Wield: Defensive Spin now stacks up to three times, first stack gives 20% and 1 Engagement. Second stack increases Evasion bonus to 30%, third to 35%.
Two-Handed: Intimidating shout now correctly reduces enemy attack power (phys/mag), no longer mentions morale.
Two-Handed: Battle Shout now correctly affects the whole party.
Discuss the update with devs and other players!
Early Access Roadmap (Updated October 2021)
Greetings, Mercenaries!
It's been less than a week since Shores Unknown was released in Early Access, and we'd like to thank you for your overwhelming support!
As promised, we're posting a development roadmap to show you what you can expect in the next few months as we continue working on the game. (Please click on the image to view the full-size version!)
Please keep in mind that the contents of the roadmap may change as the project evolves based on the player feedback and decisions the team makes. Also note that this does not include bug fixes or balance patches, as well as minor content drops - those will be added to the game when they're ready and tested.
As a matter of fact, our first update is already planned for the week of Feb 22-28, and will include a number of improvements and fixes, including a balance pass which, we hope, will resolve the majority of issues with combat balance in the currently available content. Don't worry, Shores Unknown will still remain a challenging game, but these tweaks will make combat experience more controlled and less of the bursty RNG kind, hopefully resulting in a fairer, more rewarding experience.
See you on the Shores!
0.7.0.4 Hotfix 2
Improved the balancing of certain early game combat encounters in the following areas:
Hideout - Day 2
Village - Day 3
Early Access - Now Available
Greetings, Mercenaries old and new!
We're delighted to announce that Shores Unknown is now available for purchase on Steam as an Early Access title!
[previewyoutube="7vIEv6G1f_A;full"]
Early Access launch includes the first chapter of the game's main story in its entirety, and the first half of the second chapter, as well as accompanying side quests.
Upon purchase, we'd greatly appreciate it if you could leave a review here on Steam, even if a short one. We'll be keeping a close eye on your feedback from reviews as well as Steam discussion boards, and you can ask us directly by joining our Discord!
In-game Feedback Tool
We tested the game pretty thoroughly, but even so, bugs and oddities are inevitable during Early Access. To make things easier for our players, we added a feedback form directly in-game, available anywhere by pressing "Send Feedback" from the Pause menu.
The game will automatically attach the most recent save game file for the current play session and take an in-game screenshot, then send it to our internal tracker in a neat little package. We promise we'll take good care of it!
Important note for users who have played the demo during Steam Game Festival February 2021
Two notes, actually.
First, if you still have the demo installed, you can rename the folder to "Shores Unknown", and the full game should detect it automatically. This will lower the size of required download to play the game.
Second, the save files made in demo are compatible with the Early Access build. However, please keep in mind that there have been major changes to balance, including early game, and your characters may feel weak or under-leveled for the new content. While not strictly necessary, we strongly suggest to start a new game. Here's why:
Day 0 Update
We worked extra hard to push a major balance tuning pass to keep things fresh, exciting and deadly for all of our players. If you thought the game was a bit too easy in the demos, well, you're in for a treat!
In fact, we might have made things a little bit too deadly in some places... Try it out and let us know! Feedback on combat difficulty early on will really help us when working on the next update.
Early Access Roadmap
We will post a separate announcement, which will include the information on what you can expect from updates in the first few months after EA launch, in the next day or two.
The Shores Beckon!
We hope you enjoy playing our game and look forward to seeing your feedback!
Shores Unknown - Developer Livestream #2
Greetings, mercenaries! Join us for the second live stream of Steam Game Festival, where we'll discuss some of the changes to the game over the past year and answer your questions while playing the Early Access build!
Shores Unknown is a turn-based tactical RPG rendered in a rich, low-poly aesthetic. Build your own team of mercenaries, forge alliances, wage battles, and journey beyond the seething wall of fog known only as the Murk in this decision-influenced, narrative-driven adventure.
Hey there, mercenaries! Join us for the first live stream of Steam Game Fesitval, where we'll play through the updated demo of Shores Unknown and talk the upcoming Early Access launch and the road ahead!
Shores Unknown is a turn-based tactical RPG rendered in a rich, low-poly aesthetic. Build your own team of mercenaries, forge alliances, wage battles, and journey beyond the seething wall of fog known only as the Murk in this decision-influenced, narrative-driven adventure.
Shores Unknown - October status update and the road to release (Devlog #6)
Mercenaries, long time no see!
We apologize for the lack of updates recently. Summer was a bit tough on us, but rest assured that work is being done on the game on a daily basis.
As a matter of fact, we're happy to say that another piece of the puzzle has recently fallen into place, with level design of the main game locations being finished, so our level designer is now working on polishing the existing levels and adding new locations for side quests to take place in.
We've been mulling over our plans on how to approach the release of Shores and deliver on our promises. Since we started the development 3 years ago, the game grew in size and scope quite a bit, and the team even considered running a Kickstarter campaign at some point this Summer to bring in some additional resources, though we decided against it, ultimately.
The unfortunate truth of things is that, at this rate, releasing Shores Unknown this year is no longer a realistic goal for our team. We know this isn't the first delay, but it's not easy to make an RPG, more so with a small remote team during a pandemic. So we humbly ask for your understanding and patience.
Now for the good news. Although we're moving the release into the year of 2021, we're also finally happy to announce some more concrete time frames. While the exact day is still being decided, we will be releasing the Early Access version of Shores Unknown in February 2021.
Why Early Access, you might ask? Our long-time followers who participated in previous play tests know that we value player feedback greatly, and with Early Access, we feel that it will allow us to take player participation to the next level.
While the main story of Shores Unknown is nearly finished, there's a lot of places - the battle system, player progression, side content and so on - where player feedback could allow us to add new content and polish the experience. And for you, this means being able to play a game you're interested in earlier, seeing how it is shaping up with time, and affect the direction of development with your ideas and feedback.
We're still ironing out the details of what's included Early Access launch content and post-EA launch roadmap, and will follow up as soon as everything's decided. Once again, we thank you for your patience and support.
Shores Unknown - After Steam Festival - Next Steps
Hello mercenaries!
Steam Game Festival Summer '20 has just concluded, and we'd like to express our gratitude to all of you who watched our streams, played our demo, and asked us questions during the Q&A! We had a great run over the week of the festival, and we hope the events and the demo that we have prepared were enjoyable experiences for you, too.
If you tried the demo, please consider sharing your feedback about the game using the form here.
Then click on the little "+" sign as shown on the screenshot below and apply some tags you feel match the game in your opinion.
In case you missed one of the Festival events, we've got you covered too. Watch the dev stream here: [previewyoutube="wFwfmFk-dvU;full"]
Still have questions you want to ask us? We're always happy to answer them in our Discord:
Finally, our special thanks go to the two content creators, KTGoggins and KosmykTrigger, who took their time to stream and narrate the gameplay of Shores on both Twitch and our Steam page during the Festival. Check them out!
And now, back to development. There's still a lot of content we need to implement before the game is complete, but you can expect some cool news in the next couple of months! Thank you all for your never-ending support, and stay tuned for more updates!
