SacriFire News

Hello, everyone!

I’m Lance, lead writer on SacriFire. Today, I’ve been tasked with talking to you all about SacriFire’s approach to storytelling, and also telling you a little about myself, and how I got into gaming. Like many members of the team, I spent an unhealthy amount of time playing RPGs as a child in the ‘90s (and haven’t stopped since).


My mother spoilt me - I had a gameboy, SNES, PS1, N64, and much of what came after - and I grew up on a diet of such classics as Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia, and Final Fantasy VII. It was a desire to (try to) write incredible stories like those that led me to Pixelated Milk, where I’m fortunate enough to have worked for the last few years.

[h2]Starting with Characters[/h2]

I’ve always subscribed to the belief that the key to any story is character. When I started writing SacriFire, I began with Ezekiel, and his motivations, taking on board feedback from Bartek (who also has a lot of love for classic RPGs, particularly Xenogears and Vagrant Story, which I was asked to use as inspiration). Once I had Ezekiel clear in my mind, I sketched in the personalities of the people closest to him (Sheol, Zephaniah *), and as their own natures, weaknesses, and strengths began to emerge, I moved outward in a gradually expanding circle, creating more and more of the cast of characters around them and at the same time, inevitably, the details of the world itself.



The history of Antioch, with its quirks and idiosyncrasies, all started with the character of Ezekiel, one way or another. We have quite a journey planned for him, and for that to happen the world had to be set up in such a way that he could discover its secrets simultaneously with the player.



[h2]Then the World Around Them[/h2]

That brings me onto my main point. As I was fortunate enough to be given a sizeable amount of time to work on the lore of SacriFire before development began, I was already well-acquainted with the world when I began the script (which of course ideally should always be the case, but in reality sometimes isn’t). Writing a world like SacriFire’s, where the characters are not new arrivals but have lived there all their lives, creates a challenge for any writer: how does one justify explaining the workings of such a world for the purposes of the player? For example, why would Ezekiel need somebody to explain the nature of sky carriages to him? He’s been using them to travel since he was a boy. The myths and history of the world? He already knows them.

One way we solved this problem was by starting off Ezekiel in the novitiate (a sort of monastic enclosure). Having Ezekiel grow up in this kind of environment gave him limited experience of the world outside, and therefore provided a reason for things to be explained to him.



There was also the use of the ‘final exam’ scenario at the beginning, where Ezekiel is undertaking a test, which naturally puts him (and the player) in a situation where they will be receiving instructions. For the most part, though, we simply let Ezekiel move around Antioch freely, and by extension, we hope the player will be able to piece together information about the world based on Ezekiel’s interactions and experiences.



I’ve moved around a lot in my life, and one thing I’ve learned is that people (and especially kids) are incredible at assimilating contextual clues. I’ve also found that it’s a lot of fun putting fragments of information together to try to get a shape of the whole, and that’s the experience we want our players to have as well. “Show, don’t tell” is one of the most over-repeated writing maxims out there, but it’s not bad advice all the same.

[h2]The Whole Affects Each Part[/h2]

This type of implicit storytelling requires a lot of collaboration between different departments. I remember, for example, spending a fair bit of time talking with the art department about various religious scenes and characters of Antioch’s history, because we wanted them to be depicted in background paintings that hang in the Dome (Antioch’s Notre Dame, so to speak).



It affects gameplay hugely as well, because you have to think about how things such as money, or weapons, or curing items are handled - things that are essentially gameplay-critical, but which also tie into the overall lore. For example, we had to talk about how to tackle the loot mechanic in Erebus, as it’s a ‘spiritual realm’ where objects (and lux, which is the game currency) would not be transferrable back to the physical world of Antioch.



All of the different departments have to be aware of the context of the narrative as a whole, because it affects even tiny background details of a scene to a far greater degree than the casual player might expect. It’s a big challenge to keep everyone on the same page, but I like to think that the result (Antioch, and Erebus; the characters who live there; all of our gameplay systems) has been worth it.

[h2]The End Result[/h2]

The advantage of this type of expositional storytelling is that it gives the player the freedom to choose how much they wish to participate. Some players aren’t particularly interested in the lore and prefer to spend their time making builds for approaching combat, for example, and that’s fine. Expositional storytelling lets players participate as much, or as little, as they wish to.



Hopefully, the little fragments which people do pick up about the world through background NPC dialogue, or through letters or books they find, will encourage them to dig deeper.

That’s it for this entry! If you enjoyed this post, then please wishlist SacriFire if you haven’t done so, and feel free to join our Discord to chat with the devs in real time about the game. Sheol protect you all!

* Elise came later, as the result of some necessary structural changes. Strangely enough, once I included her, it felt as if she had always been there.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1661330/SacriFire/

[p]Let's get the crucial part out first. We will not hit the Q1 launch date with SacriFire for PC, but hopefully the reasoning for that will alleviate at least some of the pain. Sorry guys. The wait will be longer, and we hope that the effort put into the game will result in SacriFire being remembered for years to come, and not just played at launch. [/p][p]Work on the game is happening at a steady although slower pace than originally anticipated. We are not where we aimed to be last year, and the scope of the game we arrived at makes putting a date on the calendar at this stage not fair. Therefore - we will be shifting the date to a later one. We should be able to confirm the goal date by the end of May this year.  [/p][p]Now for the reasoning. With as little blown up PR speak as possible. [/p][p]Please note we wanted to prepare a statement and share the information below as soon as we can, even if specific dates and details are yet not set.  [/p][p]For the past 18 months we have been busy meeting, talking to, and narrowing down the list of partners to support the proper global launch plan we are striving for with SacriFire. [/p][p]So far, SacriFire has walked the self-publishing line while looking for the right team that could support ambitious plans of having all the players - PC and console - experience Ezekiel’s journey at the same time.[/p][p]We have been approached by over a hundred potential partners that wanted to discuss collaboration on the game, and we actually pursued 57 of those.That includes both platform holders, publishers, agencies, intermediaries, funds, start-ups, and developers-turned-publishers. [/p][p]We talked, zoomed, and teamsed throughout the better part of last year, trying to narrow down the list of those that would allow SacriFire to not only successfully launch but - if we get the game right - become a cornerstone of something bigger. [/p][p]SacriFire is fueled by the passion and work of the whole talented team taking up a significantly more ambitious and higher-quality project than originally anticipated and it is financed through a combination of backer funding, private funds and European and local grants. The partner that we envisioned would help build long-term success, not simply take part in it.     [/p][p]And we managed to find that partner. One that gives us a unique chance to support SacriFire’s vision we have today. We will be able to share the specifics of that collaboration and what it actually means - in the coming weeks. [/p][p]What’s more important is that our current goal and the work happening is geared so that everyone who wants to enter Erebus can do so, regardless of platform.  [/p][p]You can expect a busy schedule of announcements in the near future. Our initial goal was to have a 100 000 wishlists at launch and we arrived at that number based on organic efforts concentrated around social media, digital events and media outreach. The current wishlist count is nearly twice the initial goal with the aim to only grow as time goes on.  [/p][p]The second important announcement is that the playtest originally intended for the beginning of this year will be pushed back - and we will communicate the date soon. The extra time will allow us to provide a better experience than originally intended and be even closer to the  final game than the version we aimed for months ago.  [/p][p]Thirdly, we are also welcoming back the Day with SacriFire tradition so that you have more visibility of the daily happenings on the game.  [/p][p]And on an ending note - the “sorry” part is genuine. We know you are eagerly awaiting the launch of SacriFire, and it sucks we missed the dates we set out for ourselves. Still, we know the only way is forward, and we will not launch until we feel it’s right. [/p][p]
- Pixelated Milk Team[/p]

[p]Five years is a long time. Long enough to learn things. Long enough to unlearn things. Long enough to question every decision you've ever made, at ungodly hours, filled by caffeine to the brim, staring at that damn environment that just won't sit right.[/p][p]Let me pull back the curtain on what we've learned clawing our way through SacriFire's production.[/p][p]I'm Adam, art director at Pixelated Milk. I've been with the studio since our last project, Warsaw, where I cut my teeth as a 2D artist. SacriFire? This is my first rodeo as an art director, and oh boy - mistakes have been made. But I want to believe some things were done right as well. My roots are in concept art, visual storytelling, asset work, painting, lighting, photography - the whole visual narrative toolkit.[/p][p][/p][p]Here's the kicker: I'm not a pixel artist, not a good one at a very least. Not then, not now, not even after five brutal years on this project. Could I crank out a sprite? Sure. Would it match the quality SacriFire demands and deserves? Absolutely not.[/p][p]What I have picked up along the way: how to make motion, storytelling, and motion storytelling. How to do level art, or UI, why you should listen to your tech-artist - basically whatever needed doing and learning. That’s an indie gamedev for you, everyone wears every hat until the hats start wearing you.
[/p][h2]You can’t solo a raid[/h2][p][/p][p]Gamedev, or any creative process at the scale of a proper JRPG game at least, isn't just vision, idea, your brave individual battling the intrusive thoughts and whatnot. So before you embark on any artistic quest, you need to gather your damn party first.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]When we assembled our artists, the reality hit fast: everyone had their own style. All of them talented, of course, all of them different. And you can't build an artistically coherent game when your art team is pulling in five different directions at once.[/p][p]So before we touched a single asset for the actual project, we did something weird - we stopped. We dedicated time to actually learn from each other: workflows, palettes, animation techniques, the whole arsenal. Our artists cranked out character after character, prop after prop, texture after texture. Then we'd huddle up, lay everything out, and dissect it. What worked? What clashed? Where were we aligned, and where were we hopelessly divergent?[/p][p]It was tedious. Sometimes soul-crushing. But by the end of that gauntlet? We didn't just have a group of individual artists anymore. We had a party.[/p][p][/p][h2]A wonder of days gone restored[/h2][p]
When we approached this game in its infancy, we had a rough idea what the game was supposed to be: a character-driven pixel art JRPG, set in the vast city-realm of Antioch. A place blending both fantasy and cyberpunk souls. This has always been the intended core identity of the game. However, having an idea, and knowing how to make it, are two different stories.[/p][p][/p][carousel][/carousel][p][/p][p]The most important realization we came across? Pixel art today is not a necessity, but a choice. So our first dilemma, probably the most conclusive one, was: how can we reimagine a pixel art game fit for the 2020s? Why do it in the first place? [/p][p]The answers? We aren’t bound by the old-school 256 color palettes, neither we are restricted to purely flat assets. And we aren’t remotely satisfied by having only two dimensions when we can have three - the larger a number the better, right?[/p][p][/p][carousel][/carousel][p] [/p][p]As for why: the sense of “wonder of days gone restored”. Not only as a way to describe the game itself, but also as a feeling we wanted players to feel deeply in their bones, rebuilding the image of the past stories as they are remembered, not necessarily as they were.
[/p][h2]Aggressive cheating FTW[/h2][p][/p][p]Here's where the 3D wizardry comes in. The core concept was simple enough on paper: inject 3D into an otherwise 2D pixel art game to give the camera some breathing room - for a cinematic feeling to flourish, and to add an actual depth to the gameplay itself.[/p][p]But here's the problem… when you start swinging a camera through 3D space, your precious sprites turn into the flat cardboard cutouts they technically are, and the whole illusion shatters. So we cheat. Aggressively.[/p][p] [/p][carousel][/carousel][p][/p][p]We throw FOV tweaks at it. We billboard sprites so they're always facing the camera like creepy portrait eyes. We layer assets with surgical precision so each sprite "sits" in 3D space through sheer contextual trickery - even when you can technically see the deformation if you squint hard enough. Don’t squint please, too hard.[/p][p]Combat is where this gets really fun. When Ezekiel locks into a grab attack (or gets grabbed himself), the camera whips around so both fighters can square up and trade blows like they're actually facing each other. But peek behind the curtain during the real-time chaos? Those enemy sprites aren't warping nearly as much as the camera angle demands. That's because we're billboarding every sprite in the brawl to align with the camera plane. The environment work? That's all about layering and mini-parallax magic - making the flatness disappear into the 3D space through organic next-asset-context alone.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]There’s one trick I refused to use, even though we had multiple headbashing contests about it: depth blur. I’m not going to hate on the idea in other games, but I refuse to accept it in SacriFire. Our artists, as they’ve proven, create these fantastic pixel art sprites and textures for a reason - and that reason is to look fabulous. Blurring them is akin to committing cold-blooded murder on both of your own feet and at least one knee! [/p][p][/p][p] [/p][h2]Let there be light![/h2][p][/p][p]Cinematic depth and spatial environments mean nothing without lighting. Neither does cyberpunk atmosphere, for that matter.[/p][p]We're not reinventing the wheel here - just spinning it really well. We're using a classic cocktail of baked lighting with ambient occlusion, strategic real-time lights in key areas, and emission maps to sell the glow or light up specific parts of the sprites. But the devil's in the details: depending on what we're trying to pull off in a scene, some sprites need to stay completely unlit. Others need spotlights baked into the light map from outside their actual intended environment.[/p][p]Figuring out what each scene or object needs is painstaking, pixel-pushing, tedium. But damn, if it isn't worth it…[/p][p][/p][p] [/p][h2]Of smoke and mirrors[/h2][p][/p][p]One more signature move in the SacriFire playbook: atmosphere. Ask any digital painter or level artist worth their salt - nothing sets mood or separates visual planes like volumetric haze. Especially when you're building a moody neon-soaked realm of “where the hell is this?!”[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The happy accident? Volumetrics gave us finer control over the "sharpness" bleeding off our pixel art assets. It's like importing edge control and blending tricks from painting. And we can push objects and entire areas forward or backward in the visual hierarchy, since the value gradient from the fog also reinforces our omni-parallax scene structure, making the 3D space feel more real even when it's all smoke and mirrors.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Literally. Smoke and mirrors (oh my beloved “flip X” and “-1 on X scale”).
[/p][h2]The fever dream of Antioch[/h2][p][/p][p]The how is one thing - but what about the what? Because direction and art aren't just technical exercises; they're the soul of the damn thing. And let me tell you, we've bled for this. Sweated over it. Made mistakes that still haunt us in the shower. But we got there.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The Antioch you'll explore in SacriFire isn't just some generic fantasy cityscape - it's a tasteful chimera stitched together from the bones of real-world history, and there's actual lore backing up why it's this gloriously schizophrenic mess. (No spoilers, though. You'll have to earn those)[/p][p]Picture this: you're wandering through the medieval European stonework of Ivanstone District one moment, then suddenly you're surrounded by the bleached arches and geometric patterns of Moorish Andalusia in Opus Peaks. Venture into Tundale, and you're threading through stilt houses and bamboo-like forests that feel ripped straight from Southeast Asian agriculture sites. The Ducane family? They've claimed Lanna kingdom architecture as their aesthetic birthright.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The Spire District - where the Church lords over everything - is this beautiful, unsettling marriage of classicist grandeur and art deco edge drenched in the golden light from the Hellgate. And then there's Erebus, the heavenly spirit world, which throws you into a blender of Celtic fairy tale whimsy and... let's just say there are darker corners I'm not going to spoil. You'll find them. They'll find you.[/p][p]Antioch didn't spring fully formed from our heads like some kind of gamedev Athena. It evolved, mutated, became over a painfully long stretch of development. Early on? Yeah, it was just another city-realm, with just a bit oversized plazas.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]But somewhere along the way something clicked. Not without an external help - maestro Thomas Feichtmeir, also known as Cyangmou, and his thorough feedback was invaluable at one pivotal point! Thank you! [/p][p]Eventually, we envisioned this sprawling underground metropolis carved into and built atop colossal stalagmites, an entire civilization thriving in a cavern so massive it shouldn't exist. Light pours down through a gargantuan rift in the ceiling above, painting everything below in this fractured, divine glow.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Looking back at how Antioch came together? Honestly, it feels less like a design process and more like a collective fever dream we all somehow agreed to chase.
[/p][h2]See you all there![/h2][p][/p][p]Look, we're not crossing any finish lines yet - there's still work ahead. But I can say this without flinching: I'm proud as hell of what we've built so far.[/p][p]Every district in Antioch has clawed out its own visual identity while still feeding into the city's larger story. The noble district? Elegant, pristine gardens, but there's something cold lurking beneath all that gold and glitter. Tundale shifts its vibe depending on which corner you're wandering through - rural one moment, a bit more rave-ish the next (if you can find it).[/p][p]This city breathes, not only in expressive idles of every NPCs. Buzzing streets thick with life. Golden light spilling from windows. Ominous corners with shady types that make you second-guess your choice of the path. Color bleeding from every crack and crevice. And Erebus? With its shape-shifting biomes? That place is going to mess with you in the best way possible.[/p][p][/p][p]I can't wait to watch you dive into this fever dream we've been building.[/p][p]See you in Antioch![/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]

[p][/p][p]Bless the Divine Mother!

Words reach us from the lands of Antioch and Erebus.

This marks the beginning of Revelations, a series where we begin to speak openly about the things that shape SacriFire beneath the surface. The ideas, systems, and decisions that define the world you will step into when picking up the mantle of Ezekiel.[/p][p]
Revelations is where we shift our focus toward the people shaping SacriFire day by day. Each entry gives the floor to the developers, artists, and designers closest to the given part of the game, speaking about their craft and the elements of the world they create. We will explore combat systems, visual direction, worldbuilding, workflows, and the ideas that guide the team’s decisions, with the unique perspective of those working directly on that piece of SacriFire.

This post creates a foundation for the series, and the first full Revelation will be coming in just a few days!

If there’s something you’d like us to look at more closely in future Revelations, let us know it in the comments or on our Discord server.

Thank you for your continued support!
Pixelated Milk Team

[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]Happy Holidays from the Pixelated Milk team! 🎄[/p][p][/p][p]Thank you for following SacriFire, wishlisting it, and supporting us throughout the year. Every comment, wishlist and bit of feedback genuinely helps.[/p][p][/p][p]2026 will be a big moment for us - the finish line is finally in sight. We’re excited, a little anxious, and incredibly grateful you’re here with us.[/p][p][/p][p]See you next year ❤️‍🔥[/p]