We have started almost every single project update with 'A lot has happened since our last update' but now the 'lot' of the past seems kind of tiny compared to the 'LOT' of today.

The Pandemic

Corona hit hard and unexpected. What we looked at with blissful ignorance and naivety in the early days turned our lives upside down in mere weeks.  Luckily, everyone from the team is safe and sound as of now, though being in the middle of the flu season we cannot be certain whether we've been exposed to the virus already or not. Either way, we  stay home to keep everyone around us safer.

Hey everyone,

we wanted to provide an update on Vagrus as we come close to releasing the first Open World build. We've been talking about it for a long time now, we know, but we hope you will appreciate the ambition of this small team, along with all the effort and heart poured into the game when you get your hands on it.

What did we learn when we started implementing the Specter and Shade enemies? Well, apart from them looking ghoulishly amazing, we realized that we need a new mechanic to best describe and present the idea behind them, that being physical damage defense and also methods to crack it.

So we added two new Combat Traits for these, Impervious and Unstoppable.

There were a number of project milestones that we managed to unlock recently over at fig. Some of these are quite big and we are very excited to be able to work on them as they make the game better and deeper by what they bring to the table. Let's take a quick look at what is being developed currently:

One of the last big additions to Vagrus' Open World Campaign that is now coming very close to being released is the character creation sequence at the start of the game. That is the feature that allows you to customize and set up your own vagrus by selecting a variety of options in subsequent steps. To give a quick idea of the many amazing options, here's a little rundown:

'...came from the farthest reaches of the vast expanse of Arenas Vorax and upon their defeat at the hands of Imperial forces - aided by the Sadirar tribes and the Dark Elves of Katundar - they retreated into that unknowable land of voracious sands, never to be seen again.'

- Excerpt from the Imperial Chronicles Volume XII

Beasts of burden and mounts that a comitatus uses are large animals. They are the lifeblood of a traveling company, carrying people, cargo, and supplies on long journeys through desolate wastelands. Sometimes, however, they can literally become sustenance - in cases when you run out of supplies or when there are not enough workers to tend to them. Still, these creatures are usually very valuable but sometimes butchering them can be the difference between life and death.

It was a long and difficult haul but as I am writing this, the new Crew Combat feature (in which you can have the whole comitatus fight against a more numerous foe) has been added to the game. To 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland', too, so you can run into all kinds of trouble while out among the dunes of Arenas Vorax in the latter part of the scenario.

• MS 6: Crew Combat Alpha
• MS 14: Unrest and Obedience Mechanics (Partial delivery): Liberate or Discipline Slaves to gain Obedience. Unrest will be added in a later update.
• Butcher beasts or mounts for supplies
• Warning triggers if an action would result in cargo loss

• MS 10: Chart Exploration
• MS 11: Companion Select during Events
• MS 13: Hidden Stash and Smuggling Contraband

• New sound effects for a number of creatures
• Camping without guards decreases Obedience
• Radial menu icons automatically pop up on the campaign map
• Node sizes increased for Point of Interests to better indicate them
• Goods tooltips now show more trade information
• Merged a few perks to make them more impactful

• Passenger destinations are now generated correctly in new games (thanks for catching and reporting this!)! Old saves remain bugged.
• New Day save now works after combat encounters in the Fighting Pit event
• Cargo slot changes are now applied immediately
• Fixed tutorial pins for closing the Journal and the Codex
• Fixed a bug causing Companion conversation portraits to be empty
• Healing companions no longer triggers the incorrect Event result text
• Fixed the Journal entry order for The Black Knight chapter V, Eliminating the Abolitionist Camps
• Clicking on the Journal or Codex during "Hold space..." tutorial/narration is up now does not open them

• More Sound Effects
• Vagrus Creation for the Main Campaign
• Companion Combat tweaks and additions
• Factions UI
• Animations for all characters

• Open World Prototype

The end of last year marked the 2nd Anniversary of Lost Pilgrims Studio and the five of us celebrated the occasion on Saturday.

Five of us? Wait a second, was there not four of us a second ago? Looks like someone joined the party! It was about time, too, because not only did ferocious beasts shown up on our gaming tabletop but we also had way too much work on our hands.