Arclight Studios Development Update
Where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going.
Wow. Has it been a year already? I guess time flies when you’re building fun. From myself, Jon and the entire team here at Arclight we want to say thank you to everyone who’s joined us already and a warm hello to all our newcomers. We’ve been incredibly busy the last year and have a lot of fresh content, updates and brand new surprises ahead. If you’re new here, you’ve chosen the perfect time to gear up, absorb a year’s worth of info and join us on Badrock.
Major updates from the last year:
- What started as two friends and a great idea has grown into a full game studio with a team of more than 20 employees.
- We’ve officially incorporated as a Limited Company in the United Kingdom, you can find our information here.
- Secured pre-seed investment to ensure we can continue building our games and wider ecosystem.
- We are building in the Polygon ecosystem and have been selected to work in collaboration with Polygon Labs.
- We’ve crafted an innovative economic structure for our gaming ecosystem. This includes a no-token model which means there will be no Arclight token and all game rewards will instead be in bluechip and stable assets.
- Our first game, Defiance Uprising has moved out of the MVP stage into full production with private beta on the horizon. We’ve now designed and implemented our map, monsters, abilities, weapons and gorgeous 3D Operators (sneak peeks below).
- Our second game, Battle on Badrock is our autobattler meets deck builder coming to mobile and PC. We’ve completed initial designs and implemented combat mechanics, elites and support cards and are now working towards a polished MVP.
We’re hosting an AMA and you’re invited!
Before we jump into the juicy updates, we wanted to let you know we’re having an AMA in our Discord on the 8th of March from 6pm — 7pm UTC and we’d love for you to drop by. This will be the first of many and we look forward to chatting with our community and answering any questions you might have. To join the Discord click here.
The Arclight Economy
After almost a year of working on our tokenomics and doing vigorous market research, we’ve ultimately decided that if we’re going to achieve real accessibility and sustainability we need to try something totally new. While we’ll save the specific details for a separate update, we can confirm Arclight will have no native token. All rewards will be in blue-chip tokens such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Matic, along with various stable coins. We’re also working on functionality that allows users to deposit and withdraw funds directly via bank account or credit card, making it easier than ever to onboard traditional gamers seamlessly.
Defiance Uprising
Defiance Uprising is our squad-based, real time strategy, role playing game (try saying that five times). Build your crew of Operators, load them out with weapons and equipment, head into the wastelands of Badrock, defeat enemy monsters and elite bosses, scavenge resources, mine some Arclight, complete your objectives, claim your position on the leaderboard, head back to Kolo’Sharak, craft some gear, level up and do it all over again. We’ve lovingly started referring to our core gameplay loop as a Defiance Run, scaling in difficulty, complexity and rewards.
Defiance Uprising had a big year; our game went from a concept to a reality. We cracked systems, sub-systems, abilities, game design, assets, maps, monsters, mayhem. We iterated until the wheels fell off and then decided, it’s sci-fi, wheels have literally no place here, when we can be using hover jets and anti-grav repulsor technology. We’re post MVP stage and flying towards our private Beta for Infinity Pass holders later this year.
Here’s a list of the major milestones we’ve already completed:
- Written two Seasons of Defiance Uprising lore (2 years of content).
- Implemented Core Game Systems: 50+ Operator Abilities, 30 Unique Racial Abilities, Racial Stats, Mission Objectives and Leaderboard Ranking System.
- Sketched, skinned, rigged and rendered tons of in game assets: 3D Operator Models, Armor, Weapons, Dropship, Maps, Enemies.
In progress:
- In-depth crafting and resource systems, multiple set piece enemy encounters, Elite Boss enemies with unique power-ups, Defiance Encounter runs, character archetype builds.
- More 3D Operator races and abilities.
- New enemies, new maps and biomes.
- A completely updated intro screen, menus, load out screen, inventory and gorgeous hangar bay.
You wanna see some progress pics? Let’s do it.
Here’s a little sneak peak of our Hangar Bay. Just wait until your Operators are standing here with all of their shiny gear and equipment, ready to load up and head out on a Defiance Run.
For all six of our playable Operator races we’ve completed our process from early concept, initial sketches all the way to final renders. Check out some sneak peeks of the current models below:
We’re super proud of these and can’t wait for you guys to see them running around in-game with all their equipment and weapons. We’ll be sharing even more Operator and enemy models very soon so watch out for those and let us know which of these four is your current favourite.
Battle on Badrock
Battle on Badrock is our take on a fast-paced strategic deck building auto-battler card game. Create your very own deck of Elite and Support cards and put them to the test against other players. Strategic placement and planning is the name of the game.
You’ll need to decide when to play your Cards and where to play them, gearing your Elite up with Equipment, empowering them with Skills or giving them some backup with Allies. Set your cards out and watch them battle it out before your eyes in a fast-paced matchup of wits and warriors. Show off your skills, climb your way to the top of the Leaderboard and claim your share of the prize pool.
Here’s a list of the major milestones we’ve already completed:
- Written two Seasons of Battle on Badrock lore (2 years of content).
- Created and implemented core mechanics and gameplay loops in our early prototype.
- Designed 15 Elite and 40 Support cards, each with unique stats and effects.
We’ve completed the functional prototype for Battle on Badrock and are now working towards a polished MVP before we open it up to our Infinity Pass holders later this year. Expect big updates over the coming months.
Future Titles
You didn’t think we’d stop with 2 games did you? They won’t be coming this year but we’re already working on initial gameplay mechanics for a fresh twist on the classic MOBA genre along with a high paced competitive FPS which we have in pre-production.
We want to build a whole ecosystem of games around our IP and infrastructure, bringing more interoperability to your assets than ever before. Whichever genre you prefer, there’ll be an Arclight game for you and your Arclight assets will carry over through them all. This means you can use that same Operator from Defiance Uprising in Battle on Badrock and the progress you make in one game will carry over to the other.
Lore
Do you like reading? Oh just twitter threads? Hey, that one guy said yes, boy have we got the thing for you- LORE! Tons of it. Get ready for a steady stream of lore releases detailing our world and all the colorful characters of Badrock. You can expect to learn a lot more in the coming weeks about: Tunkos, Evari, Denraks, Humans, Selians, Xiriphos, The Graft, Badrock, Kolo’Sharak: The City of Nations and much much more.
Team Updates
Our team has grown a lot over the last year and we are incredibly proud of the talent and passion we’ve managed to onboard. Since our last update we’ve had two new staff members join the Arclight team:
Nick — Our Senior Game Design Advisor who has shipped 4 AAA titles in his fifteen plus years in the video game industry. He’s a master tactician and has a wealth of innovative ideas and a wellspring of battle tested solutions.
Cody — A long time community member, whose wit, charm and enthusiasm made him a perfect choice for our Arclight Junior program. We couldn’t be happier to have him onboard as a Junior Unity Developer, helping Franky and the team make Battle on Badrock the best it can be.
Our team now consists of 20 incredible team members from 10 different countries. Between us we have decades of experience working at some of the largest companies in the world and have all come together in the pursuit of one common goal: to make Arclight a reality.
Our goals for 2023
We’ve updated our docs and roadmap to make sure our community is always up to date on our progress. In a space that changes so frequently, we really value transparency and keeping everyone in the loop.
Milestones we’re really looking forward to this year
- Arclight Profile Creation
- Arclight Infinity Pass Sale
- Arclight Operator Pass Sale
- Arclight Operators Sale
- Defiance Uprising Early Access Beta
- Battle on Badrock Early Access Beta
- Infinity Roster Launch
- Crafting System Launch
To view our full roadmap click here.
Closing Thoughts
Gaming is for everyone. Whether you’re an early adopter or a traditional gamer who simply hasn’t been shown what true digital asset ownership can look like, we’re building for you. Our goal is to make games that are fun to play, provide rewards that are fair and sustainable, and build an ecosystem that’s simple, accessible, competitive and most importantly fun.
From all of us here at Arclight, we want to say thank you for joining us on this incredible journey into the new frontier of gaming. We can’t wait to see what the future brings and don’t worry, we’ll save you a seat on the drop ship.
