Spellbreak remains in closed beta but exclusively for the Epic Games Store on PC. However, a promise has been made that the fantasy battle-royale hybrid will eventually find its way onto every major platform out there.
Speaking with SegmentNext in a recent interview, Proletariat CEO Seth Sivak assured that there are no plans to keep Spellbreak limited to either a single platform or digital marketplace for that matter. The developer is committed to bring the game to every platform, but refrained from mentioning a timeline as to when upon being asked. The notion put forward by Proletariat is that more details will shared once Spellbreak is ready to be released for the masses.
Sivak also confirmed that work is ongoing to “refine legibility” in large-scale skirmishes. He acknowledged that the intense art style of Spellbreak can make the battlefield overwhelming, especially when several players start dueling on the screen at once. Without mentioning how, Sivak assured that the combat will be cleaned up and additional feedback will be provided to players so that they are always aware of their surroundings.
Since the combat is so cool, players will relish some other game modes on smaller scales. Have you guys anything planned for other than the Battle Royale?
We tested a new game mode back in December called Clash. This mode was a 6v6 team deathmatch style mode that players really loved. We’re excited to bring more modes into the game and explore all the various ways we can build on the action spellcasting combat.
About the platforms, why the game has skipped Xbox One and is only available to Epic Games Store? Don’t you think the game will have much exposure if it’s also on Steam? If you are planning it to bring to Steam later on, when would that be?
We’re excited to work with Sony and Epic to host our closed beta program and our goal is to bring Spellbreak to every platform.
About in-game microtransactions. What’s the studio’s stance on that? In the initial phases, the game doesn’t seem like to be a pay to win however, will that change in future?
We will never be pay to win but we will have a cosmetic store. This has been a request for a long time from the community and it will be available at launch.
Let’s talk about the inspiration for the Battle Royale game. How do you think the game is different from already stuffed battle royale genre in terms of core principles like the circle, progression, revives etc.
Spellbreak started with the idea that Battle Royale games are essentially competitive roguelikes. We looked at that idea and built our an in-match progression system that allows for players to manage randomness of things like looting with build strategy around their class choices to achieve an optimal run. When you pair that with the very different combat model that Spellbreak brings with a strong focus on projectiles and fluid movement abilities it feels very different than any of the other shooter based games available now. Layering further the art style and theme of the game we have not seen a true fantasy game come into the 3rd person PvP combat genre in a long time.
Many of the other elements of the Battle Royale model currently in Spellbreak will be familiar, like a closing circle and loot but some are different like our take on the drop where players choose a portal and all drop at the same time. We plan to continue to iterate on the Battle Royale mode as we also seek to add additional modes into the game that can showcase our combat and class-based progression system.
About the playerbase. Can you provide us rough numbers for your alpha and beta phases both for PS4 and PC? Which platform has more users as things stand?
We only ran the alpha and initial closed beta phase on PC so we do not have any PlayStation 4 numbers to share. We have had hundreds of thousands of players play the game on PC and we expect many of them to return for the next testing phase. We’re incredibly excited about the potential on PlayStation 4 and think it could even eclipse the PC.
Talking about platforms, have you guys considered bring the game on PS5 and Xbox Series X? As a developer, what’s the most exciting thing for you about the upcoming generation?
We are so excited about the next generation of hardware but do not have anything to announce at this time. After reading the Wired article on the PlayStation 5 we’re super excited about the controller and all the haptic feedback we could integrate into our action Spellcasting. We can’t say much about the Series X right now.
Google Stadia of course is another potential platform. How do you see it for Spellbreak? Do you think the streaming platform will be well suited for the fast paced action your are offering? Any plans on bringing it to stadia?
The promise of a streaming console is awesome and we’re excited for that future to unfold. We want to bring Spellbreak to as many players on as many platforms as we can. Stadia will hopefully reach that level in the future and we’re excited at the potential but we don’t have any formal announcements at this time.
When can we expect the full release of the game?
Sometime later this year.
