Hey Warlocks!
We’re happy to be back with Part 3 of our Road to Chapter 2 series! In the previous updates we introduced Urd, showcased parts of her arsenal and teased some of the beautiful landscapes she will get to traverse, as well as meanies she will get to slaughter.
Today’s article will focus on our fresh approach to the progression system and reveal the second part of Urd’s arsenal - her magical spells and abilities. Let’s jump straight into the details!
WARGRESSION SYSTEM
During the development of Chapter 2 we were looking for ways of expanding the variety of your play-throughs and to better convey the agility and moment to moment gameplay as Urd. That lead us on the path to streamline the way she upgrades. Everything. Also - this should allow the players to experience more unique runs and speed up the progression process to stay in the action all the time!
And this is what our brand new Wargression system is all about. It is a variation of the first Project Warlock’s and Chapter 1’s Palmer’s system tailored specifically to the experience of playing Urd in Chapter 2.
In Chapter 2 instead of buying the upgrades from the stations located in the HUB, you will be able to do it with Quick Buy Menu during your run. The menu will appear once an Upgrade Token is picked up and - in general - it will automatically roll 3 random upgrades to choose from.
Playing as Urd you will be able to test and play around with all available upgrades and each play-through will guarantee its different combinations. You will be able to choose from 80 different upgrades spanned across 13 different categories, each with a varying number of upgrade levels. That’s 80 right now, but we’re still tweaking specific upgrades and will see if that number is enough.
The upgrades available via Wargression System will significantly influence Urd’s arsenal on many different levels. For some weapons it will let you boost their accuracy, rate of fire, reload speed, extend ammo capacity or even increase the chance to fire crystal projectiles! Certain upgrades will reduce the cooldowns for alternative fire and add additional effects to bullets, such as piercing or fire damage.
New progression will also influence how your attack, defense and magic works. It will improve the duration and performance of elemental effects like poison or frost or let you increase your health, armor and bleeding effect which you can inflict upon enemies. You will also get a chance to tweak the combo meter in numerous ways to feed your inner demons calling for high risk, high reward plays!
Even with a completely new approach to the progression the core Project Warlock II feature - the option to have deterministic builds - remains. To offer you more control over managing the progression of your builds we introduced the “Specialist Upgrade” (from the Luck category) narrowing down your option to 3 guaranteed categories of upgrades. You will also be able to use Reroll Tokens, Extra Roll Tokens and Luck Upgrades to manipulate the shop in a slight way to your advantage.
You will also be able to track your active upgrades in the Status Menu, so you will be able to keep an eye on your build whenever you like.
SPELLS AND SKILLS
It's a tradition for Project Warlock II to have guns and melee weapons accompanied by different sorts of spells or skills. That is why the witchcraft in possession of Urd goes a lot deeper than before into a wide range of useful and deadly spell techniques!
Do you want to feel the real vibe of being Warlock’s student? Spell book will let you release the mayhem with different types of spell attacks. When you pick it up for the first time, it will become a permanent addition to your arsenal. Just as if it were a regular weapon, you select it and then… - as the kids used to say - the real magic happens.
Spell book lets you use five different spells, each with a different element attached. They are designed to suit Urd in various circumstances and to deal damage corresponding to specific monsters’ weaknesses.
With the spell book selected, you will be able to turn its pages with the right mouse button to use spells based on fire, frost, poison, magic and crystal elements.
We already covered Dagger in our previous update. Suitable for the fast-paced gameplay style for Urd that might need to get painfully close to her enemies to dish out some personal damage, but she has another trick up her sleeve when it comes to this weapon.
Apart from the new addition of the spell book, Urd also has access to three different utility spells. Let’s check out Dagger Storm first. It creates a static tornado of flying Daggers damaging nearby monsters. Which makes it a good idea to conjure it in the middle of the demon horde. Until now, we let you dismember monsters with guns and blades, and used “meat grinder” as a metaphor - now you will be able to create a literal one!
Having to spend all those years in exile would make everyone feel lonely. Urd’s no exception here. So what does she do? Having no friends around she… created one. Introducing: Crystal Sentry - our first summoning spell in the game!
Crystal Sentry follows the player and attacks monsters by shooting powerful crystalline projectiles. It cannot be attacked by monsters, however each shot takes some health away from the Crystal Sentry until it breaks apart. Only to be summoned again a bit later, don’t worry!
Next to the rich set of magical spells, Urd can also use one of the traditional tools but with a twist that will go hand in hand with her gameplay style - the Poison Grenade.
It will assist you in many different gameplay scenarios - whether you want to deal more damage to larger groups of enemies in the open area or throw it into the narrow passages to slow down some foes.
Poison grenade deals poisonous damage on explosion but also affects your enemies with poison over time with the cloud that will emerge after the bang.
To elevate Urd’s agility and spice up the gameplay with more useful maneuvering during battles we also implemented the dash move.
This is actually a special upgrade for the Dagger which allows more dynamic combat and bullet dodging! The dash has two upgradable stages - the first gives the ability to dash forward while attacking, the second lets you dash in all directions when Dagger is equipped.
Lastly it is worth mentioning that Urd’s arsenal is not just your regular set of pistols and rifles. Almost every weapon is infused with some magic which corresponds to the additional damage you deal to incoming monsters.
The main infusion in the set of weapons is Urd’s crystal magic which supports the performance of SMG (upgrading it will give you a chance to fire crystal bullets) and Shotgun which features an alternative fire mode with deadly crystal shards. When it comes to the Dagger, it is magically infused with poison as well as phantom slash attack upgrade - which gives the player a chance to deal a wide slash attack damaging multiple monsters.
WHAT’S NEXT?
That’s all for the magical revelations today and at the same time we’re wrapping up the list of content for Chapter 2.
Our team is still polishing various aspects of the new adventure as well as still improving the first chapter. In the next update we will explore this topic a little more, including various aspects from the original Project Warlock that return in the sequel.
Till next time!
Changed depots in episode_2_wargression branch