Howdy Gunslingers!
Today we would like to share with you the hot takes of the survey that we have posted in some time ago. But before that, we would like to thank y'all for being such mighty fine folk! Your turnout has surpassed our wildest expectations - tip of the hat to you! For people like you, give us the positive energy to keep making more!
With that out of the way, let's take a look together at these fancy numbers!
Favorite NPC
Anabelle won by a landslide and we ain’t surprised! We fell in love with the gal while she was still a concept art during the development of the second chapter of Blood West and we wanted her to be the poster-girl of the second chapter. That wouldn’t be possible of course without Ivy Wilde. She did done a fantastic job of bringing the character to life and on that note each and every voice actor did a phenomenal job. In case you were wondering who is the voice behind your favorite NPC, here is a neat little homage we made for them.
[previewyoutube=A2LsU9J7NPE;full][/previewyoutube]
Best Chapter
An almost equal split between chapters sends us a clear message of what tickles your fancy when it comes to level design. Open levels with a strong theme, lots of small pockets of interest to explore and a fair, yet demanding difficulty curve. We could pat ourselves on the back here and call it a day, but there is the topic of Chapter 3. A disclaimer before we dig in, as almost 40% of participants stated that they have not finished Blood West yet - and with the difficulty spike we ain’t surprised. Nevertheless, this bit of information paints Chapter 3 in a much different color. However, we wouldn’t be ourselves, if we hadn't looked at everything thoroughly. There could be several factors that contributed to his result, the aforementioned difficulty spike, gaming fatigue, elevations interrupting the flow of exploration and a few others. We will be looking at each and one of them to make sure nothing is overlooked - just in case. Overall, we are happy with all of the chapters as they have done their very distinctive jobs very well - otherwise your reviews wouldn’t be so positive. So we take this task with an attitude of how to make a good thing even better.
Favorite Gameplay Style
Almost equal split between gunsling and sneaking! I reckon with these results we can hazard a statement that we have done good on the Stealth FPS part. Yet there is no rest for the undead and game developers as it looks like archery and melee is lagging be-hind in your estimations. While there are more than several perks and trinkets that amplify these gamestyles there seems not to be enough of them. The same thing goes for weapon variety - there weren't simply as many bows and melee weapons as guns. Luckily, the solution for this here challenge is quite simple - make more of em’! We have not only already planned a greater number of these types of weapons for upcoming content, but we have also been working on making their passive and active effects as engaging and fun as we can. Hell, you might even see a whole new kind of weapon - but you did not hear it from me.
On a bit of an off-topic, how do you feel about our archetype videos? Would you like to see more of them? Let us know in the comments!
[previewyoutube=Jc-1O-t2tgA;full][/previewyoutube]
Most Wanted Improvements
While there are some interactive environments in Blood West, shoutout to those cowboys who found the destructible lanterns, there certainly could be more of them. However, this is the part where we have to cool your horses folks. Adding physics to many objects is something that can’t be done in how we have built Blood West - performance will kick the dirt simply. So while a substantial expansion of the scope of interactive environments is a topic for a far, faaar future, we can definitely deliver the second most wanted thing - more mechanics! You can bet your last penny that we will keep experimenting with making monsters in Blood West even more complex and creepy, but you can also expect us to keep expanding gameplay archetypes. For what are new enemies without new weapons to unalive them.
Most Wanted Future Content
They say the customer is always right, so who are we to argue? Round up your crew and mosey on over to this here steam page on the 19th of August. Keep your pretty peepers focused around 19.00 CEST and you might just find what you were asking for.
See you soon partners!
