PRED Talk (Spring 2024)
Greetings Champions!
Today I’m here to share some exciting news about the future of Predecessor, including some specifics about what’s coming soon.
Xbox
As most of you know, our PlayStation Closed Beta has exceeded all of our expectations. I want to say a huge thank you to all our PlayStation players! But we’re not done. When we started making Predecessor we committed to making it available to as many players on as many platforms as we can, and we haven’t forgotten that commitment.
So, I’m very happy to announce that Xbox players will be able to join the symphony of heroes in just a few short weeks! Predecessor is coming to Xbox Series S and Series X consoles on March 28th.
Predecessor on Xbox will include full feature and update parity with PlayStation and PC versions, and of course will ship with crossplay, meaning you can play with your friends no matter which platform they prefer to play on.
I’m personally incredibly excited to introduce the entire Xbox community to Predecessor. More details including how to download and get started are coming in the next few weeks. Can’t wait to see Xbox players on the battlefield!
Localisation
Speaking of making Predecessor as accessible to as many players possible, I’m also excited to share that we have begun to localize the game into a number of languages so that friends from around the world can join the fun.
Starting March 28th, PC players can benefit from 6 new language options alongside English:
French
German
Spanish
Portuguese
Italian
Simplified Chinese
These languages are the first group that will be available with more coming soon. Because it takes a bit of extra time for the console manufacturers to certify builds for their platforms, PlayStation and Xbox will get this language support a little while after PC rolls out.
To be clear, this is just the first group of languages we’ll be localizing Predecessor into. We have more planned as we continue to roll the game out globally. If you’d like us to support a particular language, be sure to let us know on Discord, or leave a comment on this video.
Visual Improvements
Perhaps most exciting, at least for me, is that we’re including the first of many visual updates that will be coming to Predecessor throughout 2024. Believe me when I say that the changes are amazing and that the difference will be very noticeable by the time we’re done with all the improvements.
With this latest change, you’ll notice that the map feels more alive than ever, with colours that are more vibrant and visual effects that go beyond what was previously possible.
But this is just the start, just a new baseline. I’m thrilled to tell you that we’ve begun work iterating on the structure of the game map too, and we cannot wait to share more news and changes in the coming months.
Six Item Slots
Next up, I want to talk about an exciting change to the way we’re handling items coming this April.
Soon, we’ll be moving from five item slots to six, a change that has been received extremely positively in internal and private tests and that I know a lot of you have been asking for.
Of course, we’ll also be introducing even more new items alongside this change, giving you more options than ever before when building out your Hero.
Finally, as many of you may know we’ve also been hard at work on a complete overhaul of our current Crest system. Changes to Crests are coming, but they won’t be ready for a while yet. I want to assure you, though, that we’ll have a lot more to share on these changes as we get closer to releasing them.
A New Game Mode - Coming Soon!
Next, I have a little behind-the-scenes info for you: we’ve been experimenting and iterating on different game modes for a while, and I’m excited to announce that the first of these will release later this year.
I know we’ve discussed potential game modes before, and the development team and I have spent a lot time exploring what works and what doesn’t work. I really think we’ve hit upon something pretty awesome. I can’t reveal too much detail yet, but I can say that this first new gamemode is designed to be short, casual and ideal for pick-up-and-play playstyles.
I’m personally pretty impressed with what we’ve landed on, and I can’t wait to see what you think when you get your hands on it later this year.
Ranked Mode
I want ranked mode, you want ranked mode, everybody wants ranked mode! Well, guess what? Ranked mode is coming!
Our goal with Ranked Mode is to provide a competitive Predecessor experience for all player skill levels, giving everyone a level playing field as they battle it out for leaderboard glory. The pre-season will be starting later this year.
We can’t wait for the initial rollout of Ranked Mode, but keep in mind that this will be the first iteration. We plan to continuously build upon it using your feedback to ensure we’re delivering the ultimate competitive experience for our community.
Anyone who knows my background knows that I believe in competitive gameplay that is fair and fun for everyone. I truly think that Ranked Mode is where Predecessor is going to shine the most, and is going to be even more fun than the game has been thus far.
Matchmaking
Earlier this week, along with Early Access Patch 0.15, we launched our new matchmaker and fully custom backend.
Rebuilding an entire backend from the ground up was no small feat, but now that it’s done we’re in a stronger position than ever before to lean into feature development, service consistency, and perhaps most importantly to the community, the quality of Predecessor’s matchmaking.
I know from personal experience that no matter how good a game is at its core, bad matchmaking will ruin the experience. I want you to know that this has been a personal priority for me and all of our design team. I’m happy with the changes that have been made, but I also know that our new matchmaker won’t be perfect from day one. We’ll need your help and feedback to get it to the best possible state. The good news is that our new backend gives us complete control over every possible parameter, so we can refine and improve the matchmaking experience easily and regularly.
It also allows us to set tighter parameters for certain game modes, like Ranked Mode, where players are tell us they’re happy to wait a little longer if it results in a better quality game.
As with everything we do, your feedback will drive this effort, so please let us know how you feel about the matchmaking changes.
New skins
Many of you have been asking for more ways to support Predecessor, with many being especially vocal about wanting to purchase more and more interesting skins. We really appreciate your support and we hear you loud and clear.
So, I’m glad to announce that the Undertow Skin Line is the first major batch of skins we’ll be releasing. It’s not ready to ship just yet, but I brought along some concept art that I think you’re going to like.
Alongside fan favourite Undertow Gideon, we’re excited to announce new, original Undertow skins for Riktor, Rampage, Grux, Feng Mao and Zarus.
All of these sub-aquatic skins will be available later this year, alongside a giant bag of themed cosmetics.
Closed Beta Rewards
Circling back to our ongoing Closed Beta on PlayStation, we wanted to reiterate how immensely grateful we are for your support.
You may remember that late last year we announced community rewards based on the total number of sign up referrals you helped us hit in the run up to our Closed Beta launch.
Well today we’re pleased to reveal that you helped us reach over 31,000 referrals, smashing through the first 2 goals of our referral challenge.
Thanks to this, all existing players will now receive a brand new Profile Icon and Banner the next time they log in!
That’s not all however - as one final thank you to you, our community, we’re also gifting everyone who’s played so far with the final reward of the challenge - the striking Greystone Tiger Mask skin!
Now, this doesn’t mean referrals are over! Please continue to tell your friends about Predecessor, as it’s about to become easier than ever for everyone to play.
Open Beta
To that point, and to close out today’s announcements, I’m very excited to announce the next phase in Predecessor’s development: Open Beta. Predecessor will be entering Open Beta on March 28th, alongside our Xbox launch and will include our first wave of new languages.
Our Open Beta will be completely free to play on all platforms. I’ll say that again: starting March 28th, Predecessor will be free to play for ALL players, whether you’re on Steam, the Epic Games Store, PlayStation, or Xbox.
This is a critical phase for our development: we’re going free to play for Open Beta because we need as many players as possible playing the game. Lots of players in lots of regions means we can track performance, make data-focused changes, and learn what we need as we move toward the finish line. I don’t yet know how long Open Beta will run, but the more people that play, the faster we’ll be able to iterate and improve. So please jump back in, bring a friend or two, stream your play sessions, post on socials, and, most of all, have a blast.
On behalf of everybody here at Omeda Studios I’d like to give you all the biggest thank you imaginable. We built this game for you, and you’ve been with us every step of the way. That is not going to change. The future is extremely bright for Predecessor.
I can’t wait for all of you to get your hands on the latest version, and I look forward to seeing you on the battlefield!
- Robbie Singh, Founder and CEO of Omeda Studios.
