Project Update Nov ’25: Player Experience Improvements On the Way!
After a successful string of playtest sessions from a core player base, we’ve gotten enough feedback to drive at least the next month of development.
Performance Improvements
Some playtesters experienced severe hitching and underperformance in the presence of overwhelming VFX on the screen. To address this, we are using both CPU/GPU and network profiling tools to determine how to deliver a consistently high performance low latency experience.
We also upgraded the engine from Unreal Engine 5.6 vanilla to Unreal Engine 5.7 vanilla to take advantage of any performance improvements it has to offer. The migration went mostly smoothly; some compiler errors had to be fixed. There are also known issues in 5.7 with lighting, 3D text and collisions; but so far we have not run into them. We will do rigorous internal end-to-end testing before rolling out this change.
Player Experience
The core gameplay mechanics of ball passing, kicking and scoring are well established; and altogether make for a fun game! However things can be done to shift what is currently a good game into a great game. That includes:
- Kick FX and more stylized kicks
- Rewarding players for kick and ball possession streaks with special one-shot power-ups
- Better messaging when dash, offense and defense abilities are ready to use
- Team randomization or opt-out between matches
Currently these are all in the planning phase. To support them requires tackling challenges such as: How to make kicks look better while keeping them instant, and how to improve the UI without making it cluttered or confusing. But we always look forward to new challenges!
New Fields
The playtest build currently has five fields. We have four more fields that are art-complete but whose metagames are not finished yet. We hope to roll in at least one more before the end of 2025 called Cutthroat Colosseum.
In this field players collect coins that spawn in random places throughout the field. Once a team has enough coins, they automatically spend them to summon mercenaries to fight for them. And while mercenaries can’t carry the ball, they can still be pretty nasty customers!
Wrapup
As always, your testing feedback is vital to the success of this project! Grab your copy of the Steam playtest and drop us a wishlist at https://store.steampowered.com/app/1267290 . Please invite all your friends; and we’ll see you all out on the Field of Heroes!
