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Hey ‘Scapers,
Sanctum of Rebirth releases later this month – but how we do our usual full reveal of the content will be a little different than usual.
Given we've been in such a week-before-tell-all reveal rhythm for a while, I wanted to make sure we let you know our plans and run you through why we’re doing things this way.
So here it is – while we'll be confirming the release date for Sanctum of Rebirth this Monday, we’re planning to provide a less detailed look at the content before release than you might be used to.
Why?
Over the past few years, we’ve really been packing our content reveals with as much information as possible. While that’s awesome for theory crafting and getting prepped, there’s a feeling we might be stripping the magic of ‘day one’ a little out of the releases.
When we think back, some of our most memorable releases have involved a mix of enough upfront information with the room for discovery on release. Those memorable releases are the ones where players are the experts – you uncover the secrets, you provide the solutions and you share the first screenshots of those before-unseen areas you just discovered.
There’s also great examples from the past that make us want to try this - like Nex AOD, which had undisclosed drops that the community got to discover and have a communal ‘holy crap!’ moment together over.
Now obviously all content is not made equal in terms of what we can / should leave to discover. But ultimately, we do think we might be killing a bit of the excitement of discovery with how we have done things - and we think Sanctum is a great time to try something different.
A Change In Detail, Not Transparency
All of this mention of change is only relative to our usual 'full reveal' we usually do around the Thursday before release (ie. Stream, Blog, Dev Diary combo).
This is a bit I really want to stress – this means absolutely nothing for Right Click Examine, Betas or anything else that we would do to involve you in feedback. We’re committed to going even further on involving players in development, not backwards, and we’ll never limit the benefit of that for the sake of day one. That comes first.
We will still announce comprehensive roadmaps for RuneScape well in advance, followed by Right Click Examine blogs setting the stage for content releases, opportunities (in various forms) to provide feedback, and then a follow up on what we’ve taken from that.
The change here is simply relative to the level of detail you get close to the release date. Instead of a tell-all-blog and stream, we might give the need to knows. We might tell you about some key rewards, but not every single one. Essentially, it’s all about keeping some sense of discovery in each release.
This isn’t something we’ve felt comfortable about trying before, but now we’re opening up a lot more on our content during development, we hope this feels like a change in detail rather than transparency.
Why Sanctum of Rebirth?
Quite simply – boss releases are pretty secret anyway! If we want to see how this affects that day one feeling, this feels like the right kind of release to test this out on.
It’s worth mentioning this is not a Sanctum of Rebirth specific idea, but rather a first try in (what we hope is) a better way to communicate content releases.
What if I rely on that detail to decide to play or not?
We very much want to communicate enough to give you a feel for the content - who it's for, what makes it exciting, the rough edges of what to expect.
If you need the full picture to make a decision, you'll get a more comprehensive look on release day – a detailed blog, a dev diary and so on. We’ll even have a dev stream at some point in the week too. And of course, the community itself will be a great resource too!
We’re just creating some space for the community to dive into the content and discover things together. It’s all a question of timing.
What if this way sucks?
It absolutely might. There’s some awesome examples in the past where it seems to have been a big hit with the community, but that doesn’t guarantee anything.
We’re going to be looking at a lot of things – does it increase or decrease awareness of the release, do you feel it makes releases more or less exciting, does it invite more player experts guiding others or more opaque releases for less-experienced players?
We also might not apply it universally to the same degree either. Mining & Smithing is a good example of this – our RCE gave a really deep example of that content to show what we mean by ‘Skilling Updates’, so there’s not much point being vague around release. It’s also a clear example of where we’ll put the need for player feedback first over preserving day one discovery.
So that’s it. Bit of a Hooli classic for it to be such a wordy explanation, but it felt like it deserved it – how we talk to you is as important as the content we’re releasing in many respects, so we want to involve you.
I’d love to hear your initial thoughts, and after Sanctum of Rebirth releases, how you felt about it retrospectively. We'll definitely be looking to learn from this and find just the right balance - or over time, move away from it if it doesn't feel right.
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