[2018] Campaign Development (I)

Greetings!
I hope you’ve had a great summer! It’s been a while since our last update. It’s not only because even the most devoted developers need to take a break sometimes, but mostly because we’ve been working hard on the game, making big changes as we develop the Campaign Mode. This, unfortunately, has prevented us from updating the Survival Mode with new content for now.

So with this post, we would like to inform you on the game development and what we’re currently working on.

The Campaign
When we originally envisioned They Are Billions, the Campaign was the main gameplay mode and the Survival was just conceived as a quick game for fun, played in a random scenario, that allowed us to test and balance the game. We decided to release it in Early Access on Steam at the end of last year, as the players who played the Survival Preview (the backers) loved it. To our surprise the success of the Survival mode was so great that we decided to improve it over time, as you surely know, by continually adding content and putting a lot of work on it. But then... what’s happening with the Campaign?

We’re now in a paradoxical situation in which the development of the Survival takes time away from developing the Campaign and vice versa. And both modes need to grow together since they have the same core. Otherwise, we’d end up having two different games. So now, it’s the Campaign’s turn, which is also a good thing, as we’ll include many of the features implemented in the Campaign to enrich the Survival Mode.

And How is the Campaign development going?
The Campaign development has been much more time consuming than we anticipated. We’re committed to delivering a great Campaign and not just a bunch of survival scenarios that you have to play in sequence. We want to add there all that is lacking in the Survival Mode, to have a perfect and rounded experience.

In the Campaign you’ll have a big World Map where you’ll be able to choose what kind of missions to play to reconquer a big territory from the infected. Every mission accomplished will unlock new missions, but be careful because infected swarms will block your path to new territories. You’ll have to destroy them with your personal Imperial Army.

These are the kinds of missions you’ll encounter:

- Colony Building: In this mission you have to build a colony on an outdoor map and achieve specific objectives (resist X days, get X colonists, get X resources...).

- Swarm Attack: You’ll need to grow a big army from the Empire using your Empire Points to hire your troops. Lead them against the swarm that’s blocking your advance on the map and reach new territories where you can establish new human colonies.

- Old Fortresses: This is a tactical-based mission. You’ll explore abandoned human fortresses with just a few units. In these Fortresses, you’ll discover secrets and valuable artifacts that will grant you advancements in Science, Technology and the Empire. These will boost your Colonies and your Imperial Army.

The Old Fortresses missions are themselves like a whole new game that we think will improve and enrich the experience. You’ll have to venture into these infected places with only a handful of warriors (and a Hero, but we’ll talk about heroes later). To survive, use the environment to your advantage. These fortresses hold the keys to you finding out how the world fell to the infection, with lots of lore and many other surprises along the way.

We have now new artists creating hundreds upon hundreds of new graphic assets for the game. Here’s a taste of what the Old fortresses look like. We hope you like the atmosphere:







Incoming Game Editor
We expect to release a game editor soon, so players can create and share their Survival maps with other players. This will be officially supported and will be integrated with the Steam Workshop too. We’ll talk about it more in the next update.



And that's all for the moment. Keep on fighting for the humans!

See you soon!