It’s been one month now since Battle Brothers graduated from Early Access and was released a finished game into the world. Let’s talk about what’s next!
The Next Step
Development on Battle Brothers will continue as we start working on the 1.1 update. It’s going to be a moderately sized one that adds lots of little things that didn’t quite make it into the release, like some additional events and contracts that were left on the cutting room floor, as well as various quality of life improvements suggested by you. By now, some balancing and pacing issues have also come to light which the update will address. The update will be free and not require you to start a new campaign.
As mentioned previously, all of us are going to take some vacation at different times over the course of the next month or so. For this reason, we can’t give an exact ETA of when the update will hit. We’ll also not resume our weekly dev blogs for this, as there won’t be any new game mechanics to talk about. By the time the update has been finished, we’ll have come to a decision on whether we’ll continue to develop Battle Brothers with a full-sized paid expansion/DLC or move on to develop a new game.
What About Translations?
After careful evaluation and talking with other developers, we’ve come to the conclusion that supporting additional languages for Battle Brothers is not something that we can do. As much as we understand that people want to play the game in their native language, at the end of the day we’ll have to make financially sound decisions if we want to keep developing Battle Brothers, and at some point a new game.
So what’s the issue? You’re probably aware of how we chose the game’s particular art style due to our limitations of having only a single artist on the team (if not, you can read about it here). It’s the same with programming. Battle Brothers is a very ambitious project for so small a team, and with only a single programmer we had to cut a lot of corners in order to ever get it to the finished and stable state you’re now able to play, especially as the game started out as a hobby project alongside our day jobs. Lots of things had to be sacrificed along the way, including any support for localization.
There’s more than 250,000 words now in the game (that’s more than half of what The Witcher 3 has!), and in many places, like character backgrounds, we combine various pieces of text to produce new ones. This works fine with English grammar, but it falls apart quickly as we move to other languages. Supporting other languages would therefore mean not only having vast amounts of texts translated, but changing how texts are used throughout the game. All this would have come with a significant cost both in terms of time and money that we had to weigh carefully against any potential gains, and against how we could otherwise spend those resources (e.g. create new content instead). Many of you offered to help with translations, and we’re very thankful for this. However, as you can see, things aren’t as simple, and technical hurdles make any kind of translation unfeasible.
What About a Mac or Linux Version?
Sadly there will not be a Mac or Linux version of Battle Brothers. Building either would pose a host of new technical challenges and compatibility issues that we’re not prepared to deal with given the small size of our team. Also keep in mind that the game can already be played on Linux using the most recent version of Wine and using vcrun2015 with Winetricks.
The Lore & Art Book
Work on the Lore & Art Book for the kind people who bought the Supporter Edition is progressing well, and you can expect it to arrive in May. See below for a first preview – still subject to change, of course.
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Version 1.1 sounds great; thanks again for all of your hard work guys – I know that I for one have already got more than my money’s worth with this game :)
Oh I do so hope for an expansion adding real special battlegrounds like ruins, cottages, small vilages, city streets, brigand camps and so on to make the immersion even better. Also more armor variation and everything that makes our mercs even more diverse.
I´ll gladly pay another 40€ for that :)
Support for custom modifications will be?
Hello!
My name is Dmitry, I am the leader of translation project BB game to Russian language. Our group consists about 35 people today and constantly increasing. We have the tools for extracting and packing text in cnut files. Also we have fonts with Cyrillic support. We work since the release of the game and at this moment we have translated the entire text, with the exception of events and contracts. Or approximately 30% of the total text volume. I am ready to provide you a result of the our work absolutely for free, but once the text will be finally edited and tested in the game.
At the moment we need a little assist in different questions to provide higher quality, so please contact me to continue discuss.
Hello
You could help the Brazilian battle brothers community by reporting how they managed to translate the game?
I am very excited for the 1.1 Update and the Lorebook!
I really hope it will pay off for you guys to continue developing Battle Brothers. If you start on a new game it will take forever to be playable and theres no way to know if I will even like said game. I do really enjoy Battle Brothers and think it could use some more content to expand replayability and diversity in general.
I would totally pay for more content.
Please continue working on DLC for this game! It clear it started as a passion project and the foundations are very strong, don’t just abandon it unless you guys are severely burnt-out. Even in this case, just take like 6 months off or something.
U guys deserve it, game of the year as far as I am concerned!
I agree, I would love to see a full dlc/expansion and would pay alot for it. This is one of the best games I have ever played, and I would hate to see it just end.
I really hope you guys are doing well with sales as this is one of the better games I’ve played in a while! I really hope an expansion comes through in the future, I’m sending this to all my friends!
This lore/art book going be really interesting to read. Cant wait :)
Do whatever you need to earn more money and financial stability to work in this industry with a reasonable level of comfort, but please, don’t ever forget Battle Brothers, even if you end up developing a new game, please keep adding content to and polishing BB, it’s one of those special kind of games that have and deserve a cult following for many years to come.
Good luck, you guys surely left your mark in the gaming world!
You should probably do focus to ancient legionary, its not simply overpowered, they beat the hell out of me, i have lvl 12 + army with veterans blunt and axe weapons so its anti undead, with shields huge stats, but 12v14 legionary beat the hell out of me, i dont lose men vs 6 orc warriors and 16 orc youngs together no men, but vs that 14 i lose, sorry to say that but it is fucking annoying… nerf that idiot legionary, they shouldnt use shield defense, and switching like they were thinking and alive, they are dead… jesus.. they just exhaust my man in line fight, but u can use light armor cuz they massacre you, really do sometihng with that s*it pls
I want to say, this game is really awesome. I ddint know that this game is made by only few people.
I got hope you will make more DLC and content for Battle Brothers. This game deserve it.
I can spend all my money for good DLC becouse you did a great job here ;).
(Sorry for my weak english language even google translator is better than me :D)
I’m begging you please if there is any way on this earth to make this available for the Xbox live store. There are literally hundreds of people waiting for this game in a console available form. I understand controller controls might be shoddy, but I also know this game is blowing up in the gaming community, and us Indy console players are waiting for legendary titles like this to emerge on Live and the PS Store
I need this on console very bad. It would make the Indy scene on xbox or Ps actually worth visiting. I’m on my hands and knees begging for this. Pleasepleaseplease. Thank you
I would totally pay for DLC, more missions, bigger battles, cavalry, build an army or something, weapons, enemies, larger campaign maps, more objects during fights, women fighters…anything. I would probably buy anything from this studio.
Thanks for your hard work guys!!
Hey there, big fan since release!!! Can’t stop playing!
Would love to see an expansion/dlc for the game. I think it deserves it!!!!
You guys did a great job for your first real computer game! Well done. Have a good rest, it is well earned!
In order to get more money, you’d better add some paid-dlc in order to continue the work already done on the game that still need a lot of improvement. Hopeflly, the DLC would be free for those like me who paid the special support edition as I don’t have any money left yet.
I really hope you’ll continue to upgrade the game and read a gold version that each player will like. Actually there are plenty of work to do with the current game and I hope we’ll see aditional warrior like the women mercenaries; ad elves nation as we have already goblin, orc, unded and the like…
Can’t wait to see what will be future updaye of the game. Keeep the good work!!
didnt realize the old orc were so cute, kinda stupid look, and they even have archer in old setting! now i want a new legendary orc bow, low range, low accuracy, cost great deal of fatigue, but hurt like hell, Santa Claus do you copy?
I would highly suggest some “cosmetic” DLCs for some small money influx, like a banner/logo/facepack DLC of 2-3 Euros for example where the artist can work on for a bit and it will provide some income fast.
Similarly a nice “scenario” DLC with some new scenarios from the writer. Again similar price range, another chance for some extra cash.
And after a while aim for a proper expansion with new enemies, more simulation of the world, new environments to fight in etc
I would really really love such an approach at least :)
PLEASE, is it too much that player can config his/her own key bindings? Keyboard & mouse button. I have permanent injury in my left hand, so it would be helpful, for example to end turn & pause/realtime with mouse button(s). To make this happen, I believe, it would not be coders nightmare?
like everybody i enyoy the game.I would like more contents to increase immersion.
Some battles are really hard and it would be a good idea to have a larger team (16-20 brothers)
a little bit more perks (until level 15) and to get sometime special renforcement.,
why not some magical perso or non human?
Thank you … a french fan
Just like most people here I’d love to see you all continue adding to the Battle Brothers game especially via paid DLC in the form of more end game scenarios, world map variety, lore and merc customization. Though if the team decides to try something new then I look forward to whatever next project that’ll be due to the creativity behind Battle Brothers.
After update I have a bug:
The same charaster in different towns at same time for hire