Update 20 - Behind The Scenes (The Seven Realms)

Heya. It's Tae!

The final update of Realm 2 is out for everyone, so it's time to talk about it!

First of all, thank you for the great reception. This update results from a lot of hard work, and we're genuinely happy to see all your reactions to this release.

From a technical standpoint, this was our most ambitious release yet, with numerous animations during the final fight (on the demon path). We're also super pleased with how the effects turned out for the various magical elements.

The build-up to this point has been filled with doubts, but I always knew where I wanted the story to go. It was important for the tension to grow more and more to finally explode in the way it did.

And don't worry, no matter your choice, both options are good, and neither is wrong. There is no better choice. Leyala's plan works, and Atlas' plan works too. There is no incorrect point of view, just two different ways to rule the realms.

Or were they both wrong not to trust the other?

But ultimately it doesn't matter as both recognised their mistake and learnt from it in the end.

In this last update, I want to show that you can resolve things by communicating no matter how much you disagree with your significant other. Well, at least when you're bonded together.

This update was also the occasion to show how strong Lucius and Ba'el are. Depending on your path, you can see how easily they deal with Arianne and other opponents during the final battle. They have no equal in most Realms. And yet, neither could do anything against their friend Norandhil.

One thing that had more success than expected is the scene with the drunken Atlas and Kali. With this scene, I wanted to go for the same feel that the drunken scene in The Witcher 3 had on me. However, I was not sure that people would find my humour funny, so we offered to skip this scene twice during it. The purpose of this scene was to have a little bit of lightness after the tension from the previous few scenes and to get to know Kali better.

After that, I wanted a nice moment between Atlas and Leyala and show that everything was okay between them.

Both (or only Leyala, if you choose so) recognise their error and promise to communicate more, which is proof of maturity and love. Leyala is stubborn, but she has a good heart. Atlas lacks communication, but he can admit when he is in the wrong.

All in all, Realm 2 has been hard to balance because, as the player, we are more likely to think Atlas is right even when he is wrong. It's narrator bias. Even if it's not first-person POV, we still see everything from his perspective. Once I read a novel that plays on that, and it was such a train wreck to realise that the MC had been wrong from the start. No worries, it's not what I'm doing here. I just felt it was an interesting point.

This made me realise that it can be challenging to make the player understand everyone's perspective while staying in Atlas' POV.

However, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad thing. It may make things even more interesting in the future.

We ended wrapped things up with a small teaser of Realm 3...but more on that later...

Thanks again for all of your continued support. It means the world to us, and we hope you are excited to get stuck into Realm 3. We will provide some progress updates soon regarding where we're at with its development.