Protectors of the Light,
Last week, we were extremely honoured to be nominated in three categories of the Australian Game Developer Awards (AGDAs) – Excellence in Music, Excellence in Technical Design, and Excellence in Art. We are proud to announce that our team took out the award for Excellence in Technical Design thanks to our revolutionary Swarm Tech technology.
Swarm Tech is a custom RTS framework created by PlaySide utilising Unreal Engine as a front-end. This technology has the ability to render up to 70,000 units on screen at any time in game, helping give Age of Darkness: Final Stand its trademark sense of overwhelming dread. Congratulations to all the other nominees and winners!
Now to our updates. From Gamescom in August to PAX Aus last weekend, it’s been fantastic to meet some of our incredibly loyal community members in person and hearing how excited they are about Age of Darkness: Final Stand. Your feedback is what drives us to make a game that will delight our players, through Early Access and beyond.
Ahead of the next major Content Update for Early Access landing later this year, we took the opportunity at PAX Aus to share a bit more insight into what the update will bring. This includes how each Faction is starting to take shape and take on their own independent and unique Faction Identity.
At Gamescom, we showcased our new 3D Hero Select screen for Edwin, now we bring you our fearless Queen of Nothing, Aelis. Kneel and pledge your allegiance to the Rebellion:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]New Hero!
[/h2]
Continuing with the Rebellion Faction, we have the reveal of our first, long-awaited Ranged Hero, Cyrus. Aelis’ sworn protector and right-hand-man, his support in her is unwavering. He’s committed to leading the Rebellion to victory, and shooting down any enemies that threaten his Queen’s land:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Along with a new Hero, we will be adding new unique Units for both the Rebellion and the Volatist Factions.
The Rogue – a new Melee unit, armed with Stealth – will be key to ensuring the Rebellion can rapidly expand their base and claim the land that is rightfully theirs. Along with this, each unit killed by a Rogue will net the player a small amount of gold, proving quite profitable to the Rebellion if carefully managed.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
The Harbinger is a new Ranged Support Unit for the Volatist faction. Their new, unique skill – Dark Prophecy – is capable of Horrifying allied units, providing them with increased movement speed and damage buffs to aid their army in massacring the Nightmares that threaten their territory.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
The Lightbearer is the Order’s first support based unit – showcased previously at GamesCom in August this year.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
In addition to all of the new Units, the Order and Volatists Keeps will have their own unique visuals that tie into their Faction Identity.
The Order is a religious Faction who praise the Light. They look towards it to Embolden their armies and empower themselves to take on the threat that is looming beyond the Veil. With this, the Order Keeps lean more towards a church thematic, as you upgrade each tier your Keep becomes more grand and at the last tier turns into a stunning cathedral. For the Light!
The Volatists are the polar opposite of the Order, they look to the Veil and the Darkness for their source of power. They utilise Dark Essence and experimentation to grow the strength of their faithful servants. The Volatists will do anything to increase their forces, even sacrificing their own, which is why their Keep has the ominous feeling of a sacrificial altar. The more they try to harness the Veil, it begins to corrupt their Keep and infect their lands.
The stunning map of Erodar will help transport you into the world and feel grounded within our upcoming Campaign. This is where you will select your Missions, find out more about the lore of the world and see how the lands are being affected by the wars that ravage it:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We hope you are as excited about our upcoming Update as we are, and are enjoying the teases of Campaign that will be released alongside v1.0. We are incredibly proud of the game we are creating and thank you for coming along this ride with us.
View the PlaySide PAX Australia Presentation over on
TwitchPlease report bugs or crashes to us either through the
Steam forums, our
Discord server in the ‘bug-reporting’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.
Till next time Protectors of the Light…
AoD Social Links:
AoD Discord - Join our
official Discord server
AoD Website -
Official Website & Blog
Twitter - Follow us at
AOD_FinalStand
Facebook -
Like Our Facebook Page
Reddit - Join the
r/Age of Darkness: Final Stand community
YouTube -
Subscribe To Our YouTube ChannelHave a question about the game? We have a handy
FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
Speaking of which, you can also chat with our team and ask them questions on our
official Discord server here! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1426450/Age_Of_Darkness_Final_Stand
Early concepts for Edwin
Early character iteration with helmet
