Greetings Mortal, welcome back.
A few weeks ago, in our Building for the Future post, we detailed how we were gearing up for future growth. We wanted to take a moment to go into more detail about that future, our plans, and how you can help us on our shared journey.
We’re so grateful for all those who have been with us since the very beginning, and as highlighted in our Player Insights Report, we know there were questions about our direction and the plan we have for the future. We’ve taken the time to step back and look at where we are and where we’re going - along with the third-party research we’ve been undertaking, we’ve also enlisted the help of top Web3 consulting firms to help make sure we’re moving in the right direction.
Hopefully, by now you have already started to see the outcomes of our renewed focus:
- Many of you have commented on a marked improvement to the game stability, bugs, and the balance of the game in general.
- We’ve brought out shine fusing, which we know was hotly anticipated for a very long time.
- We’ve focused on balance patches that address many pain points, and we’re designing future expansions with those learnings in mind.
- We also brought in a ‘for now’ version of staking for those who have been waiting for it with Offering of the Gods.
- Lastly, we've said it many times, but we've brought on a team that is leading a new era of Gods Unchained...(we know we’ve said it a few times now, but it bears repeating because the team are now mostly onboarded and ready to start sprinting towards our goals).
The Whys
We took our time on this roadmap to examine every part of the game and your feedback, piece by piece. We wanted to make sure that every single thing we worked on made sense according to the greater vision of the game.
First, to take a moment to reflect on where we've come from. You know that old metaphor about 'building the plane while flying it' - we're not just building the plane and flying it. We're also simultaneously inventing the parts. We're solving problems in Gods Unchained that people had previously never even heard of... all while the game is live and in the hands of players. To put that into perspective, a game of this complexity typically wouldn't even see the light of day for five to six years. Gods Unchained is part of the reason why L2 exists, and we’re incredibly proud of the legacy that we’ve already created.
But we are also here to acknowledge that many challenges are still left to tackle.
In the past, we haven't been great about bringing you along. We've gone into building mode and kept our heads down, making many of you feel out of the loop. In addition to the changes we've already mentioned, this is one of the priorities that we're addressing. This roadmap is one of many steps that we hope will bring more transparency into the development process so we can continue our journey together. By driving toward a North Star, we can build toward a common vision with our community and players.
We don’t want a roadmap to simply be a series of dates that get either hit or missed - we want you to be more involved in the whys so that we can all head towards the destination together. That’s one reason we have segmented this out by purpose - we want you to build this project alongside us and understand the “whys” and the sequence of our priorities, rather than just seeing a list of features and dates. You now have the inside scoop on what is being actively developed, what is currently getting the polish, and what needs to wait until after a few other features ship. This is not intended to be an incredibly long-term roadmap, nor is it completely exhaustive - this is a map of the next few cycles of development. We have now included this roadmap development process into our internal processes, so every time we look to do long-term planning, we’ll look to iterate on this map for the future.
A New Chapter
One of the great things about web3 is that when we succeed as a business, you all share in that success - we can be clear about our business goals instead of trying to couch them in marketing platitudes. To be frank - our goals are high. We want to be the biggest blockchain game out there. We have huge growth targets, and we aren’t compromising on those just because the markets are bearish right now - in fact, this is the perfect time for us to double down on our goals. We know you believe in the potential of this game as well; otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. So now, the next steps are to focus deeply on improving the game's foundations so we can build off it and iterating on the onboarding experience, so we’re ready to explode when the time is right. Lastly, we’re also focusing on improving the player experience to move to the next step in our journey.
The idea is that we will not move on to the next step until we are ready - which means the game is in the place it needs to be in order to be as successful as it (and you!) deserve. That means we’ll be very clear every time we move forward to the next milestone and update the map accordingly.
Expanding Possibilities
Up until now, we’ve told you that lots of things are coming “soon” - this is something we want to start to fix. Things that fall into place in the roadmap fall in the order that they need to be delivered, according to both the strategy we have for the long term and how to build for that today. There are some things we currently know to be true:
- The more people playing the game, the more utility $GODS has, and the better that is for the long-term health of the economy.
- Mass market adoption needs to be focused on right now. The only way everyone will win (you, us, collectors, players) is through long-term thinking and long-term growth and working out what brings us closer to that.
- We’ve made huge headways with those foundations for growth, but we still need to improve the onboarding process for the game so that new players stick around and build some systems that will prove foundational for future ones (i.e. combat log to esports development).
- To bring in the number of players we want to onboard (we have HUGE targets) it is critical to first get the foundations in place. Doing this will set us up the best for success, which is why these features are the next priority.
During this time, we’re going to focus on bringing some onboarding improvements to light, and we’re also going to bring out some foundational building blocks that will line us up for future success - think the launch of a content creator program, a new partnership or two, and the much-awaited Daily Play & Earn.
Turbocharging Gods Unchained
This is the next stop that we see on the horizon, once we’ve rebuilt and refined our systems to start the accelerator. Some features that you’ve been looking for a while (new game mode being the big callout here!) are going to be a key feature that we know you already agree is a key to making sure new players stick around and have a breadth of content to engage with. We’re also going to be dropping a new expansion around this time, and there will be a complete rebrand from a marketing perspective to get us all shiny and ready for the masses. We’ve already brought the interim staking program with Offering of the Gods, but this period of time will bring a more permanent version of the program. We’ll also start to bring the game to new languages - we’ve already started working on this, but it’s a massive project!
Disrupting the Mortal Realm
This is the point where everything starts to come together. Once we’re confident we’ve ticked off the previous outcomes, we’ll be heading full speed into bringing Gods Unchained to the world. All of our marketing campaigns will be at full tilt, the World Tournament you’ve all been waiting for will make sense at this point, but the main thing is we’ll be ready for mobile to launch, and with it, a new kind of player. Every feature we have designed so far has been made to accommodate being on mobile, so the biggest hurdle we’re overcoming (other than making sure we’re ready for the influx!) is the back end - which is why a bunch of other features need to ship first before mobile is as stable and seamless as it needs to be.
Extra Callouts
Chests, Boards and Trinkets Migration: This doesn’t necessarily fit into our broader journey plan but also has factored in as a “promise delivery” regardless. You’ll see this before the year is out, and it will be the next ticket on the docket after Daily Play & Earn goes out the door. I see it as the little waterfall pit stop on this journey :)
Collection titles: We know this one didn’t make the map, but that doesn’t mean it has been forgotten. We’re waiting on some community-focused development capabilities to bring this one (and a few others like it) in so that the team can focus on the key priorities we’ve listed above.
Thin Client: Some of you will have heard us discussing Thin Client, and you may wonder where it falls on this. The reality is that the work Thin Client was to achieve is already being rolled out - we have opted for a more iterative release process that achieves what we were aiming for in the back end. Things like the API refactor and other code rebasing we’ve rolled out recently all would have been things that were brought in with a “Thin Client”, that have come sooner because we’ve been able to break up this feature.
Game Rules: We’re currently working on documenting the game rules and a Balance Charter (a document that shares a bit about the internal rules we follow when it comes to game balance). When we are closer to being able to share these things, we will do so.
Combat Log: We’ve completed extensive research where we put terms, iconography, and images in front of players to learn their mental models of the game. As a team, we know how the game works technically, but we need to work to match our systems to our players' understanding of the game. The engineering team has started working to streamline how the data is returned from our systems and servers and tweaking those reports to match the designs. The combat log aims to be your battle companion making clear and obvious some incredibly complex card interactions. By design, the combat log will help experienced players understand the unique interactions of cards and allow new players to more easily parse what is happening and why.
Final Thoughts
The web3 ecosystem is continuously evolving, and so are we. We hope that this deep look into our vision for the future will help you better understand our goals and be on the same page as us with regard to priorities. We hope you see this as a positive step in our journey together. We know we do. Please let us know if you have thoughts, questions, or concerns. This journey will continue to evolve as we learn more with you and adapt to new opportunities along the way, and we’ll update it as we complete each milestone. We can’t wait to explore the future of gaming with you all.
