1. Battle Realms: Zen Edition
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Battle Realms: Zen Edition News

News Of The Realms - More Delays At Hand...

Greetings, warriors!

As you might have already guessed, we are facing another delay, hopefully the very last one. We should have seen this one coming and, as unfortunate as it is, we have to break these news down to everybody who's keeping an eye out for the next update.

[h3]• State of the Update 1.58 šŸ“Š[/h3]

Where are we at right now? Currently, we're at the important stage of Quality Assurance. Lots of in-house testing going on to make sure our update releases and performs smoothly.

Let's talk about that in detail. As has already been stated, this is the most important update Battle Realms has seen in a while. Not only it is aimed at fixing all the glaring technical issues within the game, but also at adding all kinds of goodies for our players.

We are fixing the engine, but at the same time pushing its limits, which... results in all kinds of unexpected issues in the game, and that results in this kind of delays.



This update has been truly troublesome, but it's almost ready! We are now performing necessary procedures to make sure the game won't break itself.

We can no longer allow ourselves to give any ETAs regarding this, we've figured out that, most of the time, it's not possible to follow through with them and decided to abstain from that activity. We don't want to give any false promises or create early hype, and we would prefer our community to trust us with the development.

[h3]• Sneak Peeks šŸ‘€[/h3]

if you're not already in our Discord server, you should come around if you're curious about sneak peeks or some secret insight regarding the update that we only share with our community members in the server (as that's the place responsible for all our real-time operations).

If you are not interested in Discord, that's fine. There was a stream of a testing session a couple days ago. Here's a saved video of it if you'd like to check out how the update looks (apologies for the bitrate in advance).

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]• Final Words šŸ’¬[/h3]

We would like to apologize for throwing constant delays at you and not releasing anything for almost half a year now (since the last public release, open beta doesn't count). We've had a lot of work to sort out regarding this. We really hope you will enjoy the update once it's released, and all the time and effort spent on this will pay off in the end.

As of now, we strongly recommend you switch to Open Beta 1.57.9 as the current public release (1.57.8) is rather outdated in terms of balance and gameplay mechanics. It's worth checking out while we're finalizing our endlessly delayed next update. :)


ā€ƒā€ƒ

Join the official server for the game, the universe, and the community if you haven't. Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us (as developers), so we're quite keen on maintaining our server.

Populated by more than 4000 warriors, it is a solid communication bridge between us and all of you.
If you're having issues, planning to report a bug, or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with other fans or even developers -- we'd like to see you there, come around!

[h2]Battle Realms Fundraiser:[/h2]

[h2]Follow Battle Realms:[/h2]

[h3]Stay tuned for more updates!

- The Battle Realms Team
[/h3]

News Of The Realms - What We've Been Up To...

Greetings, warriors!

It's Christmas time, and the New Year is fast approaching... Yet there haven't been any proper updates from the Battle Realms Team for quite a while, let's find out the reason why together!

It is no secret that we've been developing a new update for perhaps too long, many of you are understandably becoming more and more impatient. We've stayed more or less silent in regards to the development, and it's becoming gradually more difficult to keep the exciting news within ourselves...

[h3]• What is this about?[/h3]

We want to come forward and state that this is one of the most important updates for Battle Realms: Zen Edition and it needs more time to be fully ironed out. That being said, the release date for the update is set to be somewhere around mid-January, 2022.



We'd like to point out that you can already experience a fraction of the update by switching to 1.57.9 - Open Beta of Battle Realms within Steam. You could also help us improve certain aspects of the upcoming update by leaving feedback regarding the beta version, that would be greatly appreciated!

[h3]• More on the changes[/h3]

The majority of the development time has been dedicated to updating the codebase to modern standards as well as switching from the ancient DirectX7 to its modern iterations (DirectX 9 and 12). This is the most important step as it allows us to completely fix any graphical glitches and serious rendering bugs, the performance of the game is greatly improved as well and is now smoother than ever. This also simplifies the process of including new features and integrations in the game, which is quite helpful.



Moving on... Battle Realms was never intended to work with widescreen resolutions, but would you look at that! 2K, QHD, and 4K are incoming! Those with keen eyes have probably already noticed the minor interface and background edits.

Improved textures accompany the higher resolutions: It's nothing too fancy, we've improved all game textures across the board with the help of neural upscaling technology. That has been in the works for quite a while and we're finally ready to unleash it.

Having trained and used multiple upscaling models for BR textures, we're ready to say that it looks good. Some of the more problematic textures, particularly interface-related, have been hand-edited by our artists.



Finishing our feature spotlight with a sweet sneak-peek of one of the upcoming new team colors. There are a lot more exciting changes to cover of course, but we will leave that until the actual release.



There's also talk on the team about refreshing many visual effects for the game for the sake of consistency, visual appeal, and overall gameplay. Possibly coming in the future!



[h3]• Streamlining the pipeline[/h3]

All in all, we've been very busy. There has also been a lot of work and effort put into miscellaneous things related to the development of the game. For example, as we're now seriously considering multiple balance changes across the game, we've collected a lot of in-game information in one document to make the development cycle easier for every team member involved. It will help us tremendously in achieving the more or less balanced gameplay combined with the feedback from our players.



We don't stop there however, there's a number of places we have to frequent and documents we have to dig up to ensure our development goes smoothly. There's also always user feedback that we carefully review at all times.

For example, German and French localizations! We hear you, and trust us, we're looking into it, we're still seeking the best way to make it happen within Steam. The localizations will be included in the game!



We're also working on our official site, which has been left largely unmaintained since release (it's difficult to maintain everything as a small team!), and the youtube channel - Battle Realms Network. If you haven't yet, please watch Ed's recent video for the community:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Besides Ed's appearances, there's a lot more planned for the channel, we're talking tutorials, gameplay details, and, of course, dev blogs.

Lastly, we would like to thank you, the community, for sticking with us since the very release of the game on Steam (Early Access). Your patience, belief in us, continuously provided feedback, and wonderful stories have all been a huge inspiration for our team.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! :)

ā€ƒā€ƒ

Join the official server for the game, the universe, and the community if you haven't. Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us (as developers), so we're quite keen on maintaining our server.

Populated by more than 4000 warriors, it is a solid communication bridge between us and all of you.
If you're having issues, planning to report a bug, or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with other fans or even developers -- we'd like to see you there, come around!

[h2]Battle Realms Fundraiser:[/h2]

[h2]Follow Battle Realms:[/h2]

[h3]Stay tuned for more updates!

- The Battle Realms Team
[/h3]

Ed Del Castillo - Battle Realms & The Future Of Gaming

Greetings, everybody!

Our grand update is releasing this December, before the New Year! Meanwhile, here's something to pass the time.

Ed makes his appearance yet once again, this time it's the continuation of his first interview with Bored With Nelly, exclusively focused on Battle Realms and its development!

Ed also mentions some secret stuff that's coming in the next update and the future plans of our team.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Miscellaneous info:[/h2]

ā€ƒā€ƒ

Join the official server for the game, the universe, and the community if you haven't. Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us (as developers), so we're quite keen on maintaining our server.

Populated by more than 4000 warriors, it is a solid communication bridge between us and all of you.
If you're having issues, planning to report a bug, or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with other fans or even developers -- we'd like to see you there, come around!

[h2]Follow Battle Realms:[/h2]

[h3]Stay tuned for more updates!

- The Battle Realms Team
[/h3]

Battle Realms 20th Anniversary — Message from Edward Del Castillo

Today is the 7th of November, exactly 20 years ago the original version of Battle Realms saw the light of day for the first time.

On this special occasion, Ed Del Castillo, the creator of Battle Realms. prepared a video for all the BR fans around the world. :)
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Ed Del Castillo - Producer Of C&C, RA, Battle Realms & more!

Greetings, everybody!

While the next groundbreaking update for Battle Realms: Zen Edition is being actively worked on and is to be seen this November, here's something to break the silence...

If you're an RTS fan that loves podcasts and is curious about the game industry of the past, present, and future, this very video should be right up your alley.

A youtube user named Bored With Nelly has recently talked to Ed Del Castillo, the creator of Battle Realms.

There's a ton of neat stuff being discussed: Battle Realms, Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, The Lord Of The Rings: War of the Ring, so without further ado, here's the video:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Speaking of videos, Ed is preparing a big one for our dear BR community where he's going to talk about the current state of affairs and future plans, stand by for more info! :)

[h2]Miscellaneous info:[/h2]

ā€ƒā€ƒ

Join the official server for the game, the universe, and the community if you haven't. Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us (as developers), so we're quite keen on maintaining our server.

Populated by more than 4000 warriors, it is a solid communication bridge between us and all of you.
If you're having issues, planning to report a bug, or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with other fans or even developers -- we'd like to see you there, come around!

[h2]Follow Battle Realms:[/h2]

[h3]Stay tuned for more updates!

- The Battle Realms Team
[/h3]