Hey gang,
It’s been a while since our last playtest, and we know people have been waiting to hear what’s going on.
For the past few months, we’ve been pretty heads-down. A lot was changing at once, and vague “things are moving along” updates didn’t feel worth posting until we had something real to show.
So here’s the real update.
There was a version of Golden Tides we could have put in front of players months ago. After spending more time with it, and after going through the feedback from earlier builds, the team felt pretty strongly that it needed more work.
Those early builds taught us a lot. Some parts were working, some were close, and some clearly needed to change. Players gave us a better picture of what was confusing, what felt good, what still had friction, and where the game wasn’t fully living up to what it wanted to be.
So we went back through huge parts of the game and rebuilt them around what Golden Tides has become.
The next build should feel different from the one many of you played before. New content is part of that, of course, but a lot of the work has been deeper than adding more stuff. The systems are cleaner, the feedback is better, there’s less friction, and the foundation is much stronger for everything we want to build next.
One of the first things you’ll notice is the UI.
The login screen, main menu, hero select, in-game UI, and shop have all been rebuilt. The old UI had real problems: some things were too hard to read, important information could get buried, and the shop and build screens weren’t as easy to use as they needed to be during an actual match.
That mattered because Golden Tides already asks you to track a lot. You’re thinking about your hero, talents, items, ship, enemy crew, map, objective, boss, route back to your ship, and probably some pirate trying to ruin your day from off-screen.
The UI needs to make all of that easier to understand. That’s what this pass is about.
Combat has changed a lot, too. There are new animations, tighter timings, better hit feedback, and more clarity when abilities land.
This kind of work is hard to explain in a blog post because you kinda just have to experience it. It’s the difference between an ability technically working and an ability feeling good when you press the button: the timing of an animation, the impact of a hit, the feedback when you connect, and that moment where you land something and immediately know, yeah, that hit.
Golden Tides is a PvP game, so combat needs to feel responsive and readable. Big moments need to feel big. We’ve made a lot of progress there.
We’ve also been reworking how you get stronger during a match.
The goal is for every match to ask you to make real decisions. The first major piece of that is talents.
Every time you level up, you get a talent point. Those talents can change how your hero’s abilities work instead of only making the numbers go up. Take Helios: one talent can make Frostbolt pierce through enemies in a long line, while another can make it explode on impact and hit enemies nearby.
You’re still playing Helios, but the match can push you toward a different version of him. That’s the kind of choice we want more of: looking at the match you’re actually in and deciding what your hero needs right now.
The item shop is changing too.
We moved away from flat stat items, the kind where you buy something because it gives you a chunk of attack damage or health and that’s basically the whole story. The new version is more about thresholds and meaningful passives. You spend gold, hit important milestones, and make decisions that shape how you play.
Maybe you need anti-heal because the enemy team is sustaining too much. Maybe you want a defensive option that shields you when you drop low. Maybe the match got weird and you need something else entirely.
Golden Tides is at its best when the match creates problems and your crew has to solve them.
Four new pirates are joining the roster for the next playtest. Some details may still change, but the shape of each hero is there, and they all bring something different to the game.
Eassa is a tank built around death, healing, and resurrection.
She uses Soulfang, a massive weapon that lets her cleave through enemies and heal herself as she fights. Every time she heals herself, she builds a resource called Wake of Death. When that bar fills, she activates a pulsing damage aura around her.
The longer Eassa stays alive in the middle of a fight, the more dangerous she becomes.
She can also engage in a very Eassa way. Phantasmal Shift lets her dash forward in phantom form, moving through terrain and players. Grip of the Grave snares enemies in a cone and pulls Eassa to the furthest enemy hit, which means she can dive deep into a fight and force the enemy backline to deal with her.
Sadie Sixx is a marksman with dual pistols, six shots, and a strong commitment to making fights extremely annoying for whoever she’s shooting.
Her passive is Ignition Point. Every shot stacks on the target. Hit six stacks and the target explodes.
Her mobility comes from Slide, a short dash that resets on kills. If Sadie is rolling through a fight and picking people off, she can keep moving, keep firing, and keep chasing the next target.
Dymora breaks time.
Her basic attack hits in melee range, and a copy of the same attack also lands in front of her at the exact same moment. She’s hitting two places at once.
Temporal Rejuvenation lets her dive in, deal damage, then teleport back to where she was four seconds ago.
Her ultimate, Echoes of the Past, snapshots the health of every player nearby. Five seconds later, everyone’s health resets to where it was when the snapshot happened. Allies, enemies, herself. Everyone.
That creates some strange fights. You’re thinking about what’s happening now, what happens before the reset, and what the fight looks like after everyone snaps back.
Dymora should be scary in the right hands.
Rycho is for players who want high skill expression and a little bit of anime nonsense in their pirate game.
He’s a dual-blade duelist. Flashy, mobile, hard to play well, and probably extremely satisfying when it all comes together.
His basic attack, Deadly Dance, is a channeled sequence where each strike steps him forward through enemies. The damage ramps with each step, so he’s cutting his way through the fight instead of standing still and trading hits.
Defensive Flurry lets him deflect basic attacks and projectiles. If he successfully deflects something, the cooldown on Keening Arc resets, giving him another big leaping slash.
His ultimate is called You’re Already Dead.
He sheathes both blades, takes a stance, and a line extends in front of him. When released, he flashes to the end of the line with both blades drawn, dealing massive damage to anyone caught in the path. The longer the line, the bigger the hit.
If you saw that name and immediately knew you were playing him day one, we understand.
Eassa, Sadie Sixx, Dymora, and Rycho all push the roster in different directions.
Eassa is a death-and-resurrection tank. Sadie Sixx is a mobile gunslinger. Dymora bends fights around time. Rycho is a high-skill duelist who wants to dance through the whole enemy team and somehow live.
That variety matters a lot to us.
One of the best parts of any hero-based game is finding the character that clicks. The one where you stop thinking “what should I play?” and start thinking “yeah, this is mine.”
Golden Tides needs a roster where different players can find that feeling.
Roster growth also changes the game around it. New heroes create new matchups, new team comps, new counters, new problems, and new stories. In a game with open islands, ship fights, objectives, bosses, talents, items, and crews constantly colliding in weird places, every new hero gives the match more ways to go sideways.
That’s a big part of where we’re headed.
Soon. We’re not putting a date out yet.
We don’t want to promise something we might miss, and we’d rather be clear about that than give you a date just because it would feel good for a moment. When the next playtest is ready, you’ll know.
The whole team is working on making this build something special. The next time you get your hands on Golden Tides, we think you’ll feel the difference pretty quickly.
Thanks to everyone who played the older builds, gave feedback, hung out in Discord, sent bugs, argued about heroes, and stuck around through the quieter stretch.
The game is better because of you.
More soon,
Psychedelic Games