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Dev Blog #2: Roadmap

Hello everyone! Welcome to our second Dev Blog, the 3 month roadmap for Elements Divided! We’ve had a lot of requests to know what’s coming up, especially from our early Beta testers. Big thanks to those who have helped us test the game!


We decided to just go over what you might see in the next 3 months, since the game state is still changing so much. Keep in mind, this is what we hope to get done, and could change over time. It’s not promised that everything or anything in this roadmap will happen.


Netcode


The main feature coming up soon is upgrading the netcode for Elements. The network code (or netcode) is what allows the game to run in multiplayer. Since the beta release, we’ve noticed lots of performance issues related to the netcode, especially for our Quest users. In order to help improve that, our lead developer Rory is currently working on upgrading the code from Fusion 1 to Fusion 2. We hope this should give a nice boost in connection performance, especially for Quest users, and make the game a bit more stable overall. Down the line, we’ll be doing another Dev Blog that talks more in depth about netcode, so keep your eyes peeled for that!


Earth Rework


To start off, the earth rework! We’re not sure exactly what is going to happen yet, but we’ll be evaluating the recent Air and Water reworks and try to do something in the same vein. We want to especially focus on the earth wall and its detaching ability, since current players seem to use that the most.


This might mean multiple types of walls you can pull up, say, depending on where your hands are positioned when you pull it up. Or say, community suggestions like grabbing the wall with two hands, pressing a button, and then the wall splits in half. We’ll be spending a lot of time reviewing previous community suggestions on how to improve Earth, so if you’re a current playtester, make sure you post your ideas!


Ultimate Abilities


Currently, every element has 1 ultimate ability. The goal is for every element to eventually have say, 3 or 4 different ultimate abilities you can unlock and choose from. While we don’t have all of these locked down quite yet, we do have a few ideas. Like a Lava Wave for Earth, or an explosion beam ability for Fire. Like with the Earth rework, we’ll be taking community suggested ideas into consideration as well!


Co-Op Updates


We want to make a lot of improvements to the current Co-Op mode. While it’s not the main game mode, it is a nice option when there’s not a lot of players online. Some of these improvements include things like more co-op enemies, co-op bosses, and a mission system or mini story mode.


We recently started this upgrade by removing the old co-op enemies and replacing them with 3 brand new robot enemies. We plan to continue this in the same vein by adding even more robot enemies with different abilities. This picture is an example of some of the other enemies we may add in the future.


8 robot enemies colored in white and red standing in the middle of a stadium


More up in the air are the co-op bosses and mission system. These are features we’re still working on developing further and we’re not quite sure what they’ll look like yet. We’ll have another Dev Blog in the future discussing Enemies, Bosses, and co-op more in depth when we have a clearer idea of what they’ll look like.


Progression System


If you’re one of our beta testers, you are probably used to just pulling out any and all elemental moves whenever you want. Well… that won’t always be the case. We’re planning to add a fleshed out progression system, including XP, Mastery tests, and unlockable elemental upgrades. This will make it easier for new players to get started when first launching the game, and allow them to more gradually learn all of the controls. More advanced users will quickly progress and unlock even more advanced moves. Be prepared to have to prove your skills!


Character Customization System


This is one of the changes that I am personally very excited about! A complete overhaul of our characters and a brand new customization system. Get ready to pick your hair color, eye color, and even be able to pick from a selection of several outfits. While I won’t claim our system will be quite as robust as Baldur’s Gate, or say ARK, I hope it will satisfy the urge of being able to represent yourself in game. Though I will miss the Avatar inspired characters we have currently, we can’t keep them in the game post release… as they’re just a bit too similar to the show.


Though I wish I had screenshots to show you, it’s just too early in development right now. This is another one of the topics we hope to write a much more in depth Dev Blog about later.


Other Features


Here’s the smattering of other features we’ll be working on as well;


  • Bug Fixes

  • Improved Ultimate VFX

  • Polish Maps

  • Bug Fixes

  • More Game Modes

  • Account System (allows multiple users per device)

  • Improve UI

  • Bug Fixes


Beyond

Because the game is in such a volatile state, we aren’t sharing anything past 3 months from now. However, there is one important milestone I can share briefly. In 6 months we’ll be releasing into Early Access on Steam and Meta Quest. Releasing into Early Access means this will open up the opportunity for some of our younger players to finally experience Elements Divided, since currently our Beta Test is limited to 18+ due to Meta’s policies. Overall, this will open us up to a much larger selection of players, and we hope to gather a lot of valuable feedback during this time to prepare for Full Release at a later time.


Thanks for sticking with it until the end. We hope you are excited to see what's to come next with Elements Divided in the next 3 months. If you want to discuss this dev blog further and ask the devs questions, join our discord and check out the # dev-blog channel! You can also find us on other social media as well.

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