Lost Eidolons News

Greetings all. 
I’m ODS ThorThor, Ocean Drive Studio’s Communications Director, which is just a fancy way of saying I work a little bit on all the mediums used to present and talk to you about our games. Exciting, I know. But today, I’m happy to be left alone at my desk to discuss the broad topic of characters in Lost Eidolons.


I’d much prefer to be alive, please.

If you've read this far, I think it’s safe to assume you’re interested in the game so you already know who Eden is and how he’s the protagonist of Lost Eidolons. You probably also have seen him in his gold-plated armor looking very commander-like, swinging a sword, and maybe crashing a thunderbolt or two down on someone’s head. 



And yes, that is our hero Eden. However, you can just as easily swap out his armor with a mage’s robe, put a grimoire in his hand, and have him cast healing spells. Or maybe put him in the furry shorts of a berserker and charge directly into the fray swinging a battle axe. You see, in Lost Eidolons, no character is bound to any particular class. There are five different archetypes (Hunter, Warrior, Wizard, Priest, and Knight) that are split into four tiers of classes for you to choose from.



Eden, of course, has a special final class that would be easier to unlock through the advancement of the knight class but I prefer him in the berserker make myself. All the characters you add to your army, through either natural story progression or recruit by cajoling and/or bribing, may say they’re naturally this or that class. Don’t listen to them. You’re the commander of this army, they will be what you mold them to be!
The business of advancing through the classes is a serious one. You have to be a certain character level and meet the mastery requirements of your weapon and armor. Just because everyone is equipped with a bow as a secondary weapon doesn’t mean you will master it enough to become a ranger. You really have to work on it both on and off the battlefield. So when it is finally time to advance, an Advancement Ceremony is held where the advancing characters are announced and they trade in their old lowly armor to fancier duds. I must admit that Francisco and Klara are my favorite playable characters. And aside from the story, my motivation to keep playing is to have them wear the outfits of each class.
But hey, Eden glows up pretty nicely too.



Though nobody will ever out-style Lord Pompom (real name: Lord of Pomelde). The man is the embodiment of fashun.





Now, though I named Francisco and Klara as my favorite playable characters, if I were to consider the entire roster, Balastar and Chelcia will be in my top three. Sorry Francisco, but something about badassery tugs at my heart. You will see plenty of Balastar and Chelcia both on and off the battlefield even if they’re not playable characters. If Eden has Klara, Balastar has Chelcia. Eden also has Marchelle and Balastar has Elena…but maybe I’ll save that for another day. Did I mention these characters really come alive because they’re fully dubbed (in English)?
As someone who’s seen the game pre-VO and can compare to post-VO, the impact is truly amazing thanks to the talented cast I now list in no particular order.
 
There you have it–my ramblings of characters in Lost Eidolons. I wonder if I’ll be invited back to write again…

Bye!
ODS ThorThor

Hello to all the brilliant Tacticians waiting to test out their wits in Artemesia!

Your friendly neighborhood ODS GeeK here. In case you don’t know me: I am the Digital Content Manager at Ocean Drive Studio, and am mostly known for my appearance on the monthly dev chat streams, as well as my heavy use of cat GIFs in our Discord server.

That goofy guy on the left, that’s me.

We are now officially a week out from Lost Eidolons’ PC launch, so the team at Ocean Drive Studio decided to run a series of brief posts to help you get ready for the journey you are about to embark on. You know, the Eidolons should be the only ones that are lost.

Today, I’d like to briefly touch on the various combat situations you can find in Lost Eidolons. You’ll encounter different scenarios on the battlefield, and each time you are faced with choices. Just like real life, right?

Here are some examples:

• You can rush the gate while being singed, take it slow for a harder siege, or…

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]Viturin must be a blazer of trails...

• Keeping Andrea undetected to reach the objective is an option… but you know you can always fight the enemy head-on.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]Am I the only one who wants to give Andrea a cardboard box?

While I am only sharing a couple examples here, I hope you get to enjoy the full spectrum of all the different settings our battles come in! We put a lot of thought into creating them.

Seasoned tacticians will be able to employ various tactics and weather through these different combat scenarios with ease, while a rather reckless one (like the man writing this blog post) may make some irrecoverable mistakes. Well, I guess it’s time to undo my last 5 turns… and 5 paragraphs.

ODS GeeK out.

Greetings, Tacticians.

Time really flies! Here comes the monthly Dev Chat live stream with Jin Sang Kim, the creative director of Lost Eidolons. This will be the last Dev Chat before the game launches on October 13, 2022!
The stream will start soon at:

• 9/29 6PM PT
• 9/29 9PM ET
• 9/30 1AM GMT
• 9/30 10AM KST

Join us on either our YouTube Channel or our Twitch channel. See you soon!


- The ODS Team

Hello Tacticians and Agents! (Now we are welcoming agents for the Blackout Protocol to the community!)

As you know, the team at Ocean Drive has been working hard to develop and deliver the best game possible, but we also worked many days and nights to prepare for PAX West. PAX West was our first major marketing push where we spent some budget, and there were a few reasons why we decided to be there.

1. We wanted to meet players offline, and hear feedback on the latest build.
2. We wanted to let our presence be known to the industry friends since we are virtually unknown in the gaming space.
3. We thought the game announcements would be more impactful if people could actually see and play them.

There were concerns preparing for the show in parallel with game development as we have a fairly small team, but everyone at Ocean Drive made it happen and it was a great show for us!

Everyone rolled up their sleeves for the show, including Jae (CEO), Jin Sang (Creative Director – Lost Eidolons), Dong Soo (Creative Director – Blackout Protocol), and Minkyung (Project Manager – Blackout Protocol) who flew all the way out here from Korea!



Let us share our experience at the show with all of you!

[h3]1. Meeting Players and Getting Feedback[/h3]
We were initially concerned we might not have enough people demoing the game, so we designed a booth with a small number of demo stations. But the PAX West attendees were all awesome! Fans of our genres were finding us and lining up for both the Lost Eidolons and Blackout Protocol demos. At one point the wait time to play was over an hour, during which we got to chat with people and talk about our games. It was a great opportunity for us to engage with fans of the genres.



We ran challenges for both games too! For Lost Eidolons, clearing a designated chapter without losing any units won you a beautiful desk mat featuring Eden and his squad. For Blackout Protocol, joining a 3-person party that got to the boss stage within the time limit won you an awesome mat with an agent aiming a gun at you. And man, were people serious about completing the challenges!



We had a lot of people playing the game and providing feedback, which we logged to review. Both of our Creative Directors personally took feedback directly from the players for future improvements.

In general, we received a lot of compliments on how the games play and look, for which we are super grateful. We also saw lots of people return to try the challenges if they weren't successful the first time, especially for Blackout Protocol. Players came back to get to the boss multiple times (not for the swag, just for fun!) again and again, and that was perhaps the biggest compliment of all.

[h3]2. Making Industry Friends[/h3]
We had a great time talking to game reviewers/editors and content creators. We were grateful that many editors who love RPGs stopped by to invest their valuable time at our booth.

Jin Sang expertly guided them through the demo (on Saturday, he had 8 demo sessions!!), and we have received great coverage from the media so far. We cannot wait for them to try out the final build for the official Lost Eidolons review.



Some articles from the editors who came by:

• TechRaptor - "The 13 Best Games We Saw at PAX West 2022"
• TechRaptor - "Lost Eidolons Completely Stole My Attention at PAX West"
• Hey Poor Player - "Tactical RPGs Get a Dose of Realism in Lost Eidolons"
• RPG Site - "Lost Eidolons is a difficult but deep tactical RPG that will appeal to Fire Emblem fans - hands-on"

[h3]3. Key Announcements[/h3]
We announced two important pieces of news at PAX.

We announced the release date for Lost Eidolons—October 13th, 2022—and finally announced our second title, Blackout Protocol! Thanks to PAX West, we showcased our games on PAX West’s special promotion page on Steam, and got many gamers visiting our Store page and wishlisting!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Most of all, it was really fantastic to have our teams from Korea and US working side by side, talking to gamers interested in playing the games we are making!

PAX West 2022 left us exhausted, but we are proud to have had our own booth to connect with so many players.

As we recover from our exhaustion we are already thinking about possible future shows, in hopes of meeting with even more players in the future.


- The ODS Team

Greetings, Tacticians.

We have some important announcements for Lost Eidolons today! Before we dive in, check out this quick message from Jin Sang, the creative director.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Release Date[/h3]
You heard it from the man! Many of you have been waiting for this information, and we have finalized the date–the PC version of Lost Eidolons will be released on October 13, 2022. The team held multiple internal discussions to keep the wait as short as possible, but still ensure a schedule that allows us to bring you the best Lost Eidolons experience we can.

[h3]Price[/h3]
This required multiple discussions internally as well. We also took feedback from our community to explore many different options, then reached our conclusion: Lost Eidolons will be priced at 34.99 USD (subject to taxes, regional pricing, etc.). We’d like to add that the whole process was a blessing as we got to see how much our community valued Lost Eidolons!

Stay tuned for more updates as we get closer to launch. If you haven’t already, make sure you wishlist Lost Eidolons on Steam to get notified as soon as the game is available!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


- The ODS Team