The story content for Scorched Earth (both Story Mode and Side Stories) has been completed, and as such, more can be revealed about what the final expansion's story content will consist of.
The Scorched Earth expansion's story content is bigger than the base game or any of the 5 previous expansions individually in terms of event piece count (messages, changing variables, character movement, playing music/sounds, animating a character, fading a screen, etc. -- used mainly for measuring cutscene complexity but not necessarily story/gameplay length) by a huge margin (with the entire Scorched Earth expansion being 55% bigger for event piece count than the base game alone, and the Scorched Earth expansion making up 30% of total event pieces for the base game and six expansions), which was a big reason behind this update taking 4 months.
Scorched Earth will add 2 new story arcs to Story Mode and 10 Side Stories when it releases:
A Mirror Warped -- Mentioned previously in the roadmap (and was the original name for this expansion), this Story Mode section (like all new story arcs for Story Mode) requires the previous expansion's main story arc to be completed to access (which is the Nanowish expansion's Ascendant Gate). This story arc (and Scorched Earth) will be linear (no side quests, no dungeons for new weapons, no Crystal Arena challenges).
Scorched Earth -- A new massive story arc that is also a point of no return that can be accessed after A Mirror Warped has been completed (the game will warn the player at two points during A Mirror Warped before it starts to give the player the opportunity to save in different slots in case the player wants to go back, see the original ending again or finish up gaining old triumphs). The Scorched Earth story arc takes the story in a different direction with a different ending, and the event piece count for the Scorched Earth story arc is slightly bigger than the entire base game was (the Scorched Earth story arc itself makes up just short of 20% of total event pieces for all Story Mode/Side Stories content).
Side Stories -- 10 Side Stories will be added, and their event piece count is much higher on average than previous Side Stories (277 average event piece count for Scorched Earth's Side Stories compared to 166-182 average event piece count for previous expansions). The characters who star in these 10 Side Stories will be mentioned at the end of this page.
To better emphasize how large the Scorched Earth expansion and story arc are and the higher complexity for Scorched Earth's content due to event piece counts, the chart below has been added below to compare the base game and different expansions.
Cutscenes are measured to include battles in between scenes (so for purposes of measuring this, a story scene -> battle -> story scene -> battle -> story scene will count as one cutscene). Endings include their final battles.
Endings were separated in the chart below from the base game and Scorched Earth arc due to their size to better emphasize average cutscene size.
Event pieces totals are rounded to the nearest 10.
Message counts (which includes story scene dialogue/NPC dialogue and Yes/No style choice selections in Story Mode/Endless Dungeon/Counterintelligence and can range from "..." to longer/multiple sentences, but does NOT include ending placards, ability descriptions for any game mode, Prison Break taunts and so on) are rounded to the nearest 10 per expansion.
Side Stories are measured as all cutscenes, gameplay events and dungeons within a single Side Story (for time constraint purposes for this single news page, as they were not divided up the way cutscenes were), and do not add to Cutscene count.
Miscellaneous non-story work (such as NPCs and their dialogue, activating doors to travel between maps and Challenge Arena setup) are merged with Main Story, Side quests and Side Stories as appropriate (this brings up the overall average event piece count/cutscene, but the amount of time required to sort out the miscellaneous parts from each expansion will be too high for the purposes of this single news page).
As Scorched Earth is still not released, it could still have event pieces added/removed/altered over the course of its remaining development (the Nanowish expansion had about 70 or so added to it after its first progress update for general fixes and additions).
Average event piece count will be abbreviated as AEPC for the chart below.
Content section
Content subdivision
Message count
Cutscene count
Event piece total
AEPC/cutscene
AEPC/side story
Base game
Total
~3060
76
~12280
Main story + Misc (except ending)
63
~10670
~169
Side quests
12
~540
~45
Ending
1
~1070
Legends Overload
Side quests
~610
48
~3300
~69
Tenebris
Total
~1780
63
~6640
Main story
25
~3330
~133
Side quests
38
~3250
~86
Endless Dungeon (Pantheon Priests)
~60
Into The Past
Side Stories (20)
~1000
~3600
~180
Warbeasts
Total
~1940
46
~7120
Main story
22
~3410
~155
Side quests
24
~2370
~99
Side Stories (5)
~910
~182
Counterintelligence Cutscenes
~430
Nanowish
Total
~3650
89
~11270
Main story
28
~4180
~149
Side quests
61
~6260
~103
Side Stories (5)
~830
~166
Scorched Earth
Total
~5800
78
~19080
A Mirror Warped
23
~3750
~163
Scorched Earth (except ending)
54
~11090
~205
Scorched Earth Ending
1
~1470
Side Stories (10)
~2770
~277
Total
~17840
400
~63290
The 10 new Side Stories for Scorched Earth will also be revealed. Like Stel'cra'ded in Nanowish, Almavana is a new character introduced in Side Stories.
Character
Side Story Name
Year (Story Mode starts in 1919, currently at 1920)
Subwoofer
Harbinger
1918
Xavier
Hidden Gem
1914
Noble
That Feeling Of Helplessness
1916
Leo
Fairweather Friends
1919
Ace Crundlin
Never Stop
1918
Seth
What Makes A Man
1919
Diana
Charity Case
1917
Higgins
A Leader Worth Fighting For
1917
Almavana
Death Of An Emperor
1868
Diamo
Eternal Hunger
371
Work on models, maps and music is next. Hopefully, I can get a preview video for Scorched Earth ready in a shorter time than past expansions (since this expansion adds no new game modes and no new playable characters to fit into every mode).