The Stormgate Roadmap

For the most up to date details on the roadmap, check out our dev update blog here: https://playstormgate.com/news/looking-ahead-stormgate-s-path-forward

[한글 버전]

CHANGELOG (October 25, 2024): To give our team more time to work on features such as our Team Mayhem closed alpha, we are moving our 0.2.0 Content Update to later this year. In the meantime, our October Patch, 0.1.2, will deliver a critical update aimed to fix a number of bugs and improve performance for a variety of hardware configurations. We expect to follow it up with a November Patch, 0.1.3, which is scheduled to include a wide range of balance updates for ranked 1v1 play along with many additional improvements. 

Other updates related to our future plans and our dev roadmap:

We are pleased to welcome Frost Giant’s new art director, Allen Dilling, to the Stormgate development team. Allen is an industry veteran who was the lead artist for StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm as well as the lead 3D artist and assistant art director for Legacy of the Void. He also contributed to Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, StarCraft: Ghost, and Heroes of the Storm.  

Allen is currently onboarding and, as he ramps up, is planning for the future of Stormgate’s visual identity. The current plan begins with elevating our core factions, starting with the Infernal Host. Please join us in welcoming Allen to the Frost Giant team. More details on our plans around art will be shared in the future.  

• Added spooky login rewards available to all players for free in patch 0.1.2. 
• We are hard at work on our implementation of fully customizable hotkeys. We aim to deliver them early next year.
• Range indicators are being implemented in patch 0.1.2. These will continue to be visually polished after their initial implementation, but will enable players to more easily see the ranges of their attacks and abilities, especially when targeting them.
• Moved the release of our next Vanguard Hero to later this year, in update 0.2.0. This change was made so that we could prioritize some improvements to the Gear system, leveling experience, and other aspects of the Co-op mode.
• We’ve improved Co-op progression to make it more satisfying and to give players access to Gear much earlier than before. These changes will be part of patch 0.1.2. 
• We are making significant improvements to the Chapter 0 and 1 campaign missions, but we will be putting more time into polishing that content and anticipate their release in early 2025. This work includes:
  • Changing the mission order to improve narrative flow
  • Adding a new “hub” level, the Raptor One, for players to explore between missions
  • Overhauling map layouts and mission objectives
  • Updating most character models with improved designs and higher-fidelity versions that support lip syncing and facial animation
  • Incorporating additional playable Heroes to more missions
  • Adding a new Hero leveling system and customizable abilities
  • Improving Campaign sub-systems, including Items, Journals, and cutscenes
  • Rewriting and re-recording a significant proportion of the Campaign dialogue
  • Improving how new units are introduced

Team Mayhem closed alpha playtesting begins at the end of this month. We are keeping this initial test very small and will invite more playtesters over time. Stay tuned for more information.

Please note that all future plans are subject to change.

CHANGELOG (September 16, 2024): With our 0.1.0 update on the horizon, we've made significant changes to our planning and Roadmap to address the most critical player feedback we've received. Here are the highlights:

• We're giving Amara a full makeover with improved body proportions and more.
• We're aiming to release an alpha playtest of our 3v3 mode in our October update.
• We're upgrading our visuals with lighting and terrain changes. More improvements to our visuals are also on the horizon.
• We're adding Weekly Mutation Challenges.
• We’re offering robust hotkey modifier customization.
• We're focusing on improving the existing campaign missions based on player feedback and will release future campaign chapters after we've improved what we've already delivered. Campaign improvements will be ongoing and we expect this work to go well into 2025.
• We have ongoing work ahead on audio, pathfinding, and performance that will be guided by our player feedback.
  

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  CHANGELOG (July 31, 2024): We just started our Early Access preview period and have made a few adjustments to the Roadmap based on our most current planning. Here are the highlights:

• New Tier 3 units will be coming later in 2024 (moved up from 2025).
• Stormgate is localized in several languages, but the quality of these localizations will continue to improve as we address reports from the community.
• We’re planning to add mid-session campaign saves so that you can lock in your progress in case you need to take a break or step away for any reason.
• We’re working on further performance improvements and optimization–this will be an ongoing process throughout our development.
• While not reflected in the roadmap yet, we’ve heard the feedback on our campaign cutscenes and we’re assessing next steps. The models you see in the cutscenes are the game models that were meant for the top-down gameplay camera angle. Our plan is to introduce “cinematic heads” with facial animations in the future.
• We’re also aware of the request for more comprehensive hotkey customization and it’s in our planning.   

Please note that some content and game features will be coming after Stormgate's Early Access release. This includes mid-session campaign saves, the in-game Editor, and our competitive 3v3 mode. For information regarding known issues we're tracking, please visit this page. To learn more about some of the feedback we’re acting on after the start of Early Access, check out this blog.

Hi everyone,

Our plan is to update our Roadmap if any major changes come up during Early Access. We fully expect that things will change as game development is never a straight line–it’s filled with twists and turns, but it also often includes cool surprises as the team develops features based directly on player feedback. We’ve lost track of how many changes have already been made to Stormgate based on what we’ve heard from our playtesters and we have no doubt this will continue throughout Early Access.  

We’ve added a few notes below to clear up any questions you may have about this content rollout plan. Let’s dig in!

Early Access Release

• 3 Factions - Vanguard, Infernals, Celestials
• 1v1 with 7 Maps
• Top 500 Leaderboard - courtesy of our friends at Untapped.gg
• 3P Co-op with 6 Maps
• 5 Heroes for 3P Co-op
  • Blockade is free to all players, with progression fully unlocked. Amara, Maloc, Warz, and Auralanna are all free to enjoy until level 5. It’s similar to how StarCraft II Co-op Commanders worked. 
  • Progression can be fully unlocked by purchasing a Hero ($10 USD, may vary by region). 
  • Hero progression is initially capped at level 15. Levels 1-10 are currently “core” linear progression for each Hero, expanding its power and kit, while levels 11+ open up customization through our Gear system. We plan to raise that level cap later in development. 
• 6 Campaign Missions
  • Three prologue missions are completely free. We recommend playing through these first if you’d prefer to try before you buy. 
  • The first Vanguard Campaign Chapter is three missions. Future Campaign chapters will have a minimum of three missions.
  • At Early Access release, these missions will be playable solo. In the future, we are adding the ability to play these missions cooperatively with friends.
• Tier 3 Units (Phase 1) - we’ll have a few Tier 3 units during our Early Access release, with more to come.

Later 2024

• 1 New Co-op Map
• 2 New Heroes for 3P Co-op
• 3 New Campaign Missions
  • This is Vanguard Campaign Chapter 2. It will contain at least 3 new missions.
• Mini War Chest
  • We are planning to create “War Chest” events where players will be able to earn fun cosmetic rewards by earning XP. 
  • An initial “mini” version of the Stormgate War Chest will be released this year, with our first full War Chest coming in 2025. 
• Weekly Mutators
  • These will provide players with modifiers and variants that will help keep the 3P co-op experience fresh. 
• Map Editor Showcase
  • We’re planning to reveal more of our development on the Editor later this year, similar to how we’ve already unveiled some video of our editor tools and a look at one of the custom game modes developed in-house using this toolset. If there’s anything specific you want to see about the Editor, be sure to let us know in the modding channel on Discord!

Coming in 2025

• 3v3 Debut
  • We expect to roll out the first public version of 3v3 next year! 
• Map Editor Debut
  • While we’re aiming to get something out to players as soon as we can, we are confident in being able to put the initial version of the Editor into players’ hands next year. 
• 9 New Campaign Missions
  • This includes Vanguard Chapter 3 and the first two chapters of our Infernal campaign. 
• Co-op Campaign
  • We’ll be adding co-op functionality to all of our campaign missions!
  • If you’ve paid for campaign content, you’ll be able to invite friends to play it with you for free–they won’t have to pay to play.
• Integrated Tournaments
  • We want players to be able to spin up tournaments from within the client. 
• War Chests
  • Our seasonal War Chests will be making their proper debut next year. 
• Learning tools
  • Still too early to go into too much detail, but our partners at Untapped.gg have ambitious plans around creating cutting-edge data-driven learning tools for Stormgate players. Stay tuned for more information. 
• Tier 3 Units (Phase 2)

… and so on, with a future full of new maps, Heroes, and more! Our plan is to release regular content updates every couple months to keep the game fresh and exciting, without creating too aggressive a content cadence so that it feels like there’s too much to stay on top of and the game becomes a chore. We hope we strike the right balance and look forward to hearing from the community on how this all feels during Early Access.

On behalf of the Frost Giant team, thank you so much for your support. We’re incredibly excited about finally releasing to Early Access on August 13 and can’t wait to see our playtesters back for the early preview on July 30!

If you want to get in on that preview and haven’t already supported the development team, please consider picking up one of the bundles available here: https://playstormgate.com/prepurchase

-The Frost Giant team