Hello, everyone!
How you doing?
It's time for a new concise dev diary on EMPTY SHELL 2 : )
tldr; I'm currently working on the achievements, which are the last major task remaining. A potentially final first version is already complete in English and Italian. It will still need to be localized into all other languages and thoroughly tested, but after that, we should be getting very close!
The past few weeks have been pretty intense, especially when it comes to writing the lore and distributing it across the various items that can be found throughout the locations (and in some other forms).
Since the game's progression is very different from the first EMPTY SHELL, allowing (and very often requiring) volunteers to visit and revisit different areas of the island multiple times, putting the story together has been... interesting, to say the least : )
Also, sometimes you think you're almost done and then one thing leads to another. For example, while writing a part of the story about someone who encountered a creature engulfed in flames that simply refused to die, i realized some enemies have to be immune to fire. That means things like Soulless Kamikaze explosions (which can now set nearby beings on fire), flamethrowers, the new flare gun or the new incendiary ammo shouldn't affect them.
So a whole new subtask opens up before you can get back to the main one.
But, NG+ is also ready (just rethinking/refining a few aspects), and i'm currently thinking about the mechanic of a second post-game mode (like Iron Volunteer from the first chapter), which i'd like to include from day one.
By the way, if you have any ideas about it, feel free to share them below or on Discord!
I originally intended to start testing right away, but at this point it makes sense to include the achievements as well, so they can be tested alongside everything else.
Speaking of achievements, there will be quite a lot of them (more than 80 at the moment), and once again i'm trying to make sure many of them are genuine challenges rather than just statistics to grind or progression milestones to reach. But honestly, i'll include that type of achievements too, cause i still find them satisfying.
The side missions i mentioned last time have also all been implemented, at least the ones i intend to include at launch. As i already written before, i'd like to keep adding new ones regularly, together with new locations and additional content in general, during the weeks and months following the game's release.
Do you know that feeling when you come back to a game after not playing it for a while and pleasantly discover that a lot of new things have been added?
I'd like ES2 to become that kind of game.
But first, let's get it released : )
Now, all of this doesn't mean we're right around the corner from release.
But it does feel like i'm getting closer : )
Once testing begins (and finishes, actually), i'll get a clearer picture of where things stand and how much there still is to fix/add(/remove?).
Bugs aside, getting the balancing perfectly right at the first attempt is unlikely, but sometimes you get surprisingly close and the final tweaks end up being only a handful.
To be honest, i can't wait to play through the entire game myself with a real build and outside of the Unity editor : )
I'll leave you with a short (maybe too compressed) GIF showing a few new locations you'll soon be able to visit for yourselves.
Speak soon, volunteers.