Mid-Season Update – The Mouth of Madness
In this season’s Mid-Season Update, we invited a guest to contribute his take on the latest content and asked him to tap into his own resources to show the game from a player point of view. Thank you RedBeardFlynn for providing us with this update!
What’s that sound? Off in the distance but getting closer, between the groaning of old wood swaying in the wind, the rustling of grass. A tittering, almost like…no, it couldn’t be. A series of soft tapping, and clicks, something rustling through the underbrush, feet plodding against the ground, faster, and faster. Several of them, sets of them. In the darkness, filtered through gossy strands you see them, glowing eyes, glittering and bouncing along and getting closer. Glowing red, nestled closely together, 2…3…4…no, 8 of them! They aren’t alone…humans…glazed over eyes and blank stares. This…this isn’t good.
You’ve entered Mad Run, home to myriads of 8-legged enemies intent on dining on you and your little torch, weakly flickering in the gloom. Too late you realize…you should have brought friends.
Season 2 of Pantheon Rise Of the Fallen’s pre-release cadence opened up with the release of a major new area of Avendyr’s Pass: Mad Run, a decidedly darker portion of the zone complete with spanning webs, plentiful spiders and much, much more. The new high level (17-24) area even features an open world level 40 raid boss for intrepid adventures on Terminus to discover, and attempt!
But that wasn’t all Season 2 also saw a major lighting update across the entire game, smoothing out lighting across both the day and night and adding increased ambiance that you can see in the before and after video below, or by checking out the various streams and videos of content creators of all kinds as Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen has officially dropped the NDA.
- Other items that were updated include:
- New swarm and minion mechanics for NPCs
- Updates to several class abilities
- Spell resistances updated and improved
- Torches as part of the improved lighting
- Major updates to woodworker crafting profession
- Updates to NPC behavior
That’s all well and good, but what did the actual players have to say about Season 2 through the mid waypoint?
Josgar: Season 2 has been really great so far! The new lighting overhaul has propelled the new graphics forward. I’ve had a lot of fun looking at the new effects that were added. It has also helped show the direction the game is going in. I can’t wait to see what future seasons hold.
Desryndoes: Season 2 feels like a turning point – a milestone after a long line of steps that have been taken over years, and the beginning of Pantheon’s future. It feels both special and regular. Special, in the sense that it’s the closest we’ve been to what we can expect Pantheon to be, but also regular as we enjoy the cadence and reliability of the Seasons structure. The biggest revelation is that people are already starting to play it as a game and not just a test, and that’s very exciting for the future of the project.
Jiraki: I’ve been having a great time. The game looks and feels 100x better after this latest graphics pass. They mostly fixed some of the old bugs (mobs freezing on the landscape, teleporting underground), but are now grappling with brand new ones (hello infinite buffs!), as is The Way of Testing. Overall, I’m pleased that VR is keeping to their promised schedule, and I Iook forward to torching Mad Run once I find a flamethrower.
Lewin: Season 2 is a step in the right direction. Mad Run is unique in it’s difficulty, visuals, and just how fun it is. The lighting overhaul was breathtaking in most places (gloom I’m looking at you) and I overall feel like momentum turning for VR. The ball is in their court now.
Tootiredtocare “The Lucky”: Danger lurks around many corners, stay vigilant.
Gulogulo: Overall I have been very satisfied with Season 2 so far. The parts of Mad Run I have experienced felt creepy, challenging, and most importantly fun. The lighting update still needs some tweaks but I really like the intent behind it. I can’t say enough good things about the job PVL has done with the sounds and music which help establish the setting and mood so well. I hope Season 2 is a sign of great things to come in future seasons.
Looking forward, there will be plenty more fresh meat for the widowers in the coming weeks as Champions will be able to hop in starting on April 27th and Supporters will reinforce them on May 4th.
Beyond that…
Summer in Terminus is looking a little chilly…and a little bloody, coming May 11th.
Thank you again, RedBeardFlynn! If you are interested in supporting the development of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, please visit our pledge page to find out how.