Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch News

Hello everyone!

In this dev log, I’d like to discuss the story behind how Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch came to be.
(Please note, this post will contain some spoilers for the first game.)

Fans of Lost Eidolons may recall a mission about halfway through the game. Eden and his friends are nearing the end of their fight against the Empire, and attack the capital city, Leroyaure. But when they arrive, they’re attacked by a strange undead knight, Gustave, under the command of the Prime Minister, Maurin – who later reveals to Eden that the Emperor is deathly ill, and secretly searching for a way to achieve immortality. But we don’t really come back to that in the first game, and there’s a reason why.
Before we began development of the first game, we put together a pretty ambitious history of the entire continent where the story takes place. This included everything from ancient lore, to what’s happening around the time of the game, to what might happen in the future, with lots of little plot-hooks for other games to explore.
One of those stories was about the Emperor’s true fate, and a secret research facility on an island off the coast.



While development on Lost Eidolons was going on, we actually had another project set in the same world. Internally, we called it Project UR: a crafting/survival game set on a zombie-infested island, which would pick up where some of these threads in Lost Eidolons left off.
Project UR was ultimately canceled to focus our resources on the main game, but the concept for the setting stuck around, as did a lot of big questions about the world that we knew we wanted to explore in some way. Questions like: What happened to the Emperor? What’s going on with all the zombie stuff? And even more broadly, what exactly are the Eidolons, and how are they shaping the fate of this world?



Eventually, these ideas and questions formed into a concept for a new game, which became Veil of the Witch. It’s a dark fantasy story about a new customizable protagonist, Ashe, who journeys to Anareios and becomes caught up in a conspiracy surrounding the remnants of the empire, the Emperor’s search for immortality, and the secrets of the Eidolons (which we get into a bit more directly this time around).




Like the first game, Veil of the Witch is a strategy RPG, but with even more focus on combat and gameplay. Hades and Slay the Spire were among our inspirations as we outlined the project. Slay the Spire because a few of us played it to hear Clark Aboud’s music, and fell in love with the looping structure and deckbuilding elements. And Hades because we loved the addictive experience of a hack-and-slash roguelite whose story is designed to unfold over time.

Inspired by these games, the core concept of Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch solidified into a strategy RPG with extremely fast battles, streamlined skilltree-style progression, and various elements borrowed from the roguelite/roguelike genre. (I want to be careful throwing that word around too much, as people tend to have a lot of different ideas and expectations when it comes to that genre. But we can get into details about that another time.)




As we got deeper into planning the game, a lot of other ideas have crept in – some from things we wanted to include in Lost Eidolons, others from different projects we’ve had ideas for. It’s been a lot of fun, and we’re very excited about how the game is shaping up.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this peek behind the scenes! We’ll be back in couple of weeks to talk a little more about the story and the world.

See you soon,
Jin Sang Kim, Creative Director

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2530490/Lost_Eidolons_Veil_of_the_Witch/

Tacticians,

PAX West is near and dear to our hearts because it’s where we announced Lost Eidolons’ release date, our studio’s second title Blackout Protocol.
So it was only fitting that we unveil “Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch” at PAX West 2023.

This year, we were in the new Summit building with plenty of daylight showering down on us.
We were grateful the Seattle weather was accommodating and held its raindrops until after we were done hauling in our boxes on move-in day.



Our Ocean Drive Studio booth was divided into three sections. 6 demo stations for Veil of the Witch, 6 stations for Blackout Protocol, and a dedicated media area. And when the PAX gates opened, all the stations kicked into high gear.








Dropkick Navvy, another new title we announced at PAX>


Jin Sang, our Creative Director, was also on hand to answer questions and gather feedback from brand new players, fans of Lost Eidolons, and the media.




After our first day, we figured that the demo game was much too challenging. There were only a handful of players who succeeded in completing the map in victory. And to be fair, the demo did start at a pretty advanced map without a tutorial. So Jin Sang quickly leveled the playing field a bit by equipping the characters with better stats. It was still challenging, but we saw many more victors arise from the chairs.

And of course, per the tradition of gaming conventions, sweet sweet swag was given away to about a thousand people. Thankfully, game victory was not a giveaway condition and everybody who stopped by received a bag in either red or black.




After four busy days of introducing the new installment in the Lost Eidolons world, it was time for Veil of the Witch stations to power down.
As always, it was a little bittersweet to pack it in and leave the PAX floor for the year. But we will be back next year. And who knows what big news we will break next time?

One thing is for sure, you won’t have to wait until PAX West 2024 to hear from Veil of the Witch again! So keep your eyes on Steam by Following the page, and/or all our social pages.

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We will be back to see more smiling faces like this!


Until the next time we meet, with much gratitude,
ODS ThorThor

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2530490/Lost_Eidolons_Veil_of_the_Witch/

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since our last major Lost Eidolons update, when we added New Game+ mode to the PC edition.

Since the game's release, we've spent a lot of time collecting feedback and having internal discussions about the game's future. As promised, we delivered LE on Xbox and Playstation this month, with the help of our porting partner, PID Games.

Now it's time to decide where the world of Artemesia goes next.
There were a lot of paths available to us in making this decision. Should we do DLC? Big or small? Or should we just jump straight into Lost Eidolons 2?

In the end, we've decided to take a different path, and try something a bit unexpected.

Today I'm happy to share what we've been working on: an exciting new spin-off game, titled "LOST EIDOLONS: VEIL OF THE WITCH"!



We refer to the game as a "spin-off" (rather than a true sequel), as it shares a lot of Lost Eidolons' core identity, and even a few characters. But the gameplay and general presentation is a major departure.
Now let's dive into some questions you may be curious about.

[h2]
What kind of game is "Veil of the Witch"?[/h2]
Veil of the Witch is a turn-based tactical RPG with rogue-lite elements. It takes place in the same world as Lost Eidolons, and is set shortly after the events of the first game. But it's an entirely standalone experience you don't need any prior knowledge to play.

Fans of the first game will find Veil of the Witch to be a tighter, more focused game, that offers more of what they love with less friction in between.

New players will find a rich world and characters, a fast and gritty combat system, and an addictive, looping structure that sets the game apart from the rest of the genre.

I'm confident the game will speak for itself.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]What's changed since Lost Eidolons?[/h2]
In one word: speed.
Lost Eidolons was a linear, story-driven RPG that unfolds gradually. Veil of the Witch, on the other hand, is fast, gameplay-driven, and hits the ground running immediately. One of the most immediate changes is that we've done away with sprawling class trees that take 30 hours to get to the cool stuff.

In Veil of the Witch, things are much more stripped-down. Each character has a single class, with fixed weapons and armor, and a very specific playstyle. There's still progression and choices to be made (skills to unlock, gear to be upgraded, and so on) but generally it's all a lot tighter and more focused now.

We've also made a number of changes to the combat system itself, and the game's overall structure is radically different from Lost Eidolons. I'll save the details for another day, but for now I'll simply say that I'm a huge fan of games like Hades and Slay the Spire, and they've had a huge influence on Veil of the Witch.

The result of all this is a leaner, meaner game with more excitement, greater strategic depth, and the freedom to approach battles how you decide.



But this doesn't mean the story experience isn't important to us. Like much of the rest of the game, our approach to narrative this time around is: "Less is more". We've got a great setting, a tight cast of characters people will love, and a new approach to story presentation that (while sparse) we're hoping will be a lot more effective.

Oh, and we've taken the art direction for characters and UI in a completely new direction. I personally love how this game looks, and I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it soon.



[h2]Why make a spin-off instead of Lost Eidolons 2?[/h2]
While it took a lot of internal discussion to reach this decision, in the end, our reasons are pretty simple.
It won't surprise anyone to say that, while we're proud of Lost Eidolons, there are some elements that didn't quite come together as well as we would have hoped, and many of you felt the same.
When we dove into player feedback for the game, two big points came up over and over again.

First, players said they liked Lost Eidolons' story and characters, but found the actual execution to be sometimes lacking, and often inconsistent.

Second, most players loved the combat system, but felt progression lacked meaningful choices, and encounter design could be rigid and unforgiving.

After weighing this feedback and discussing it internally, we decided to try something new that would let us build on the engine we've created already, but take a big swing in a new direction, with a storytelling approach that was lighter and simpler.

Also: I've just always wanted to make a game that brought rogue-lite stuff into the turn-based tactical genre! So we decided that before jumping into a sequel, we'd try a spin-off, and see what happens.



But I want to be very clear: this isn't some little pilot project or cash-grab pseudo-DLC. We're very serious about making Veil of the Witch an excellent RPG that stands entirely on its own two feet, and offers a ton of depth and replayability.

[h2]So when can I play it?[/h2]
This time around, we're going to be pursuing an Early Access model, and do actual open game development with ongoing community involvement.

One of my biggest regrets about Lost Eidolons was that we didn't do public playtests until after much of the game's design had already been locked-in, and was difficult (or in some cases impossible) to change.

One of the main reasons we did that was because it was a linear, story-driven game, and we consistently got feedback that players didn't want to play an incomplete version of that kind of game. After all, no one wants to read a messy first draft of a novel that spoils the plot.

But as Veil of the Witch is a more gameplay-driven title, I feel a lot more confident sharing early builds, so we can gather and integrate community feedback. If everything goes well, I'd like to launch in Early Access sometime in 2024, but it's likely we'll run some beta tests before then.

Also, as I'm really hoping to release the game on Switch, our team has put a lot of effort into lowering the overall hardware requirements. By the time we hit full release, we're hoping to make the game available on all consoles. (No promises on simultaneous launch, though.)

I'm very excited to finally share our second Lost Eidolons project! We're planning to share more details in regular dev blogs down the line (starting with this one).

I hope you'll join our player community on Discord, where you can chat with us about the game. And don’t forget to wishlist Veil of the Witch on Steam!

See you soon,
Jin Sang Kim
Creative Director, Lost Eidolons

DISCORD | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE | TWITCH

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2530490/Lost_Eidolons_Veil_of_the_Witch/