Graphics Overhaul, Dynamic Weather, Character Redesigns & Steam Makeover!
Greetings, adventurer!
As October comes to a close and with some of you gearing up for some Halloween festivities today, we’d like to share with you what we’ve been up to this past month!
It's time to start talking about Beta. With your biggest question, where are the Beta updates?
Our team has been hard at work the past 6 months rewriting our graphical pipeline and network backend to provide a more rewarding gameplay experience while also creating a secure user experience for years to come. We are ready to start sharing with you the new content that you'll see in our Beta 1, starting with today's blog.
Keep an eye out for our upcoming blogs, as it will be entirely focused around Beta content.
It All Starts With A Concept
We mentioned in a previous blog that some of our more notable creatures were being reworked. Our Toka’s being just one of many that you’ll discover during your time spent in Ilysia. These changes begin with some simple concept art where we explore their overall design and color variations that would fit well in various locations within the world. With the addition of our Igara, which we showcased in a previous blog, these revised Toka now take on a new underling role.
A Fresh New Look
For those that had the opportunity to play through our previous Alpha, you might remember some NPCs, such as Lora (Pictured below). Our art team since then has been retexturing the faces of these characters to breathe life into their design!
You’ll also find that we’ve shifted gears to a more hand-painted art style. Focusing on adding more detail to characters and creatures throughout Ilysia. Creatures like the boar (Pictured below) have been updated with this new style.
Breathing Life Into The World Of Ilysia
And speaking about the changes of our graphical pipeline, we are extremely excited to show you a first look at our PCVR changes that you'll see in our Beta 1.
This video highlights the technological advancements we've made in the last several months. This is a comparison walkthrough in the town of Weskellet between our previous graphics in Alpha 2 and our current build of Beta 1. With some extra surprises such as real time dynamic weather that responds to the different seasons.
Steam Overhaul
B-B-B-BONUS ROUND! We’ve cleaned up our Steam Page! We went ahead and added a breakdown of key features, new screenshots, and updated our trailer. If you find yourself on our Steam forums, we’ve also added an in-depth FAQ to help answer some of those burning questions asked by our community!
Check out our key features of Ilysia below:
In-Depth Character Customization. Choose from a selection of races and customize your character to detail!
FreeForge Class System. Choose from a myriad of classes and customize it to your own playstyle through specialized skill-trees!
Rewarding Exploration. Explore a world with a variety of different regions and find hidden caves, lost treasure and world bosses!
Weather System. Experience a variety of weather types that change depending on the season, as you scout each distinct biome!
Climbing & Gliding. Dangle from cliff edges and jump from ledge to ledge, or use your glider to traverse wide chasms as you travel the world of Ilysia! Climb trees, rocks, vines, ropes and buildings.
Swimming. Dive into deep lagoons and swim underwater to find treasure, hidden caves and aquatic enemies!
Titans & Guardians. Encounter gigantic creatures you can climb to find moving dungeons, exploration zones or even fight them!
Dungeons & Raids. Party up, or not if you’re brave enough, and fight your way through countless dungeons, taking on a myriad of enemies and bosses!
Combat. Swing a sword at your foes, strike them from afar with a bow or burn them to ashes with powerful magic!
Opt-in PvP. Fight other adventurers anywhere in the world who have also enabled PvP!
Rideable Mounts. Collect and ride a plethora of terrestrial and flying mounts to traverse the lands at higher speed!
Player Housing. Decorate, customize and invite friends to your own personal living space.
Caravan System. Customize and travel the world of Ilysia with your own personal caravan.
Crafting & Professions. Open your own business! Be a blacksmith, fisherman, traveling merchant, innkeeper or run your own tavern! Gather and craft items for other adventurers or give them a place to rest after a long journey.
Pets & Pet Battles. Capture and tame small creatures and have them fight alongside you or partake in pet battles with other adventurers!
Fast Travel. Take an airship or set sail on a boat to safely navigate in-between towns.
Thank You For Reading!
We hope you enjoyed reading our monthly blog! Don't forget to wishlist us on Steam as we are so excited to share more juicy content in the upcoming months!
- Team 21 Studio Inc.