It's no secret at this point that I've been busy working on the followup game to Windward for the past several months. Windward was an excellent project to work on, but I feel like it has achieved what I had in mind for it: a multiplayer action game set in the Age of Sail meant to be played with your friends. Now... I feel like it's time to move forward a few years into the future.
When I say "time to move forward", I am not only talking about the age that the game is set in, but also about the tech used to make the game in the first place. Windward was created using Unity 4 and an older version of my custom networking solution, which together forced me to abandon my original "one huge open world" idea and instead split the world into separate regions. Fortunately this is 2016, and not 2014 -- and there are newer versions of both that make it possible to create the huge open worlds I envisioned in the first place.
But... I digress. Let's get back to the game itself. Let me just take a moment to explain what I have in mind for it.
First, I want the world to be really *huge* and varied enough to have the scenic sights be their own reward for exploration. I think that part is well on its way already.
Next, I want every action to have a reason. I don't want the cliche "deliver X to Y for a Z gold reward" approach. I want the "establish a mining rig to extract raw uranium ore that should then be delivered to the processing plant so that it can be enriched then shipped to a nearby reactor so that it can start generating electricity which will then power a nearby manufacturing facility which will then require aluminium, iron, and various other elements to create an automated defense turret which can then be placed nearby, protectiong the player's outpost". Does that sound long? It should! I think every meaningful action should have an extended set of consequences.
Not only that, I want there to be clear reasons for establishing outposts in the first place. In Windward you could place towns everywhere without a care in mind. What if every outposts, placed structure by structure, took resources to construct, which there were only so many of in the world? Suddenly players would have to be more mindful of what they spend their hard-earned resources on and would always have to be on the lookout for new sources of minerals and other crafting components.
Even better, the limited resources combined with the lack of fast travel and a huge world will all but ensure that players will have to band together into groups in order to defend their territory from others that don't shy away from using force to take what they want. This approach also means that no one group of players will be able to control the entire world as it would simply take too long to travel from one end of it to another. Instead, establishing trade routes between outposts owned by friendly player guilds would facilitate alliances and promote teamwork and allow players to feel like they actually *own* a part of it -- and that's another something that I felt was always missing from Windward.
With the new game set in the near future era, modern and futuristic technology will grant me a great leeway in creativity and what's possible. Giant tech tree that features research technologies like radar absorbing materials for stealth composites, energy shields that can reduce incoming damage, even rockets that make it possible to establish outposts on the entirely new untapped territories of the outer planets... the possibilities for expansion are truly endless here. As a developer who wants to work on this for a couple of years, this part is arguably the most important of them all.
And so we're brought to today and the still-unnamed project I'm currently referring to as simply "W2". I hesitate to call it "Windward 2" because it's not a followup, but an entirely new game meant to improve on its predecessor in every way. At this point you may wonder, "so what is actually being kept from Windward?", and the answer is simple -- you.
While most companies these days start off with their new projects using Kickstarter to raise money, followed by selling it via Early Access, followed by the full on-release, I'm going to use a separate opt-in Windward branch right here to let you -- the existing Windward players -- to play the new game while it's in alpha and/or beta, for free.
You can expect more details on this in the coming months.
Think of it as my way of saying "thank you". Thank you for being awesome and for supporting me -- an indie developer, and allowing me to get to this point in the first place.
Love you guys!
- Michael "Aren Mook" Lyashenko