Witchfire is an upcoming shooter that gameplay-wise resembles Destiny. Now the title has postponed its “Early Access” launch due to a single feature.
Which shooter is it about? Witchfire (PC) is a first-person shooter developed by the Polish studio The Astronauts, sending you into a war against witches. You are armed with firearms and spells. Witchfire is set to be released on the Epic Games Store.
The studio The Astronauts is known for The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and consists of former employees of People Can Fly, which released the looter shooter Outriders in 2021. The expansion Worldslayer was released in the summer of 2022.
Why should Witchfire play like Destiny? In a blog post from 2019, Creative Director Adrian Chmielarz addressed the similarities to Destiny. There, he praised the weapon behavior of the popular shooter.
Those who have been following the game have noticed a lot of Destiny in Witchfire. Fortunately, no one seems to have a problem with it… and for good reason. […] The way the weapons feel and the physics-based movement is, for me, the best there is in the business.
Creative Director Adrian Chmielarz via theastronauts.com
Chmielarz also added that Witchfire is inspired by Destiny:
Destiny takes from other games, other games take from Destiny […]. We also take from Destiny, but hopefully it will be clear that the similarities on a top level are merely superficial.
Creative Director Adrian Chmielarz via theastronauts.com
When is the release? Originally, the early access release of Witchfire was scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2022. However, at the beginning of the quarter, Creative Director Adrian Chmielarz announced that the early access launch would be postponed.
The new goal is for Witchfire to potentially start early access at the beginning of 2023. Thus, the reason for the delay he cites is the redesigning of a core feature.
Witchfire changes how players experience the world
What feature is it about? The changes affect the rogue-lite elements of the dark fantasy shooter. According to Chmielarz, Witchfire will still be a rogue-lite shooter, but the way players experience the world has significantly changed.
They have transformed the combat area from an arena restricted by barriers to a semi-open world, and this transition, according to Chmielarz, took time (via theastronauts.com).
Why was there a shift to a semi-open world? Combat in an arena made sense, according to Chmielarz, as it controlled the flow of the game, but they felt “old school”.
More freedom, but also many questions to answer
How does this change affect gameplay? Chmielarz also explained in the blog post why the semi-open world and the associated freedom make the game better. He says:
[…] You can still be caught by a witch at any point, and some doors are locked until you find a key. Also, it might be too dangerous to enter areas near a boss before you are ready. But the world is wide open for you to explore in almost any order, and you can both push forward or retreat as you wish.
Thus, a semi-open world gives players the opportunity to enter an area and possibly retreat later. However, according to Chmielarz, this raised several gameplay questions that the development team needed to solve:
- Should the enemies stay in the area if the player moves away?
- Should the enemies follow the player?
- What if the player runs into another new area where even more monsters appear? Should both groups of monsters merge?
- If so, what reward should the player receive: one from the new area, one from the old, or both?
- If both, isn’t it essentially an incentive for the player to run into a cave and push enemies into a narrow corridor?
- And what about players who just run amok and trigger one area after another, can the game handle a hundred enemies at once?
- Should the enemies despawn or freeze behind walls?
“Hundreds of questions that needed to be answered. Hundreds of little solutions that needed to be implemented,” Chmielarz added, explaining why the redesign necessitated a delay in the release.
What do you think about the transition to a semi-open world, and do you find it reasonable that the early access launch was postponed because of it? Feel free to write it to us here on MeinMMO in the comments!
Are you curious about the comparison between Witchfire and Destiny, what is currently happening with the looter shooter? You can find out on MeinMMO!
