Wizardry: The Five Ordeals - DLC Prisoner of the Battles announced

[HiddenX]

The Early Access title Wizardry: The Five Ordeals will get a DLC next March:

Our first anniversary! and announce DLC scenario "Prisoner of the Battles" !

Thank you very much for your continued support of "Wizardry: The Five Ordeals". In this issue, we would like to provide you with various information including future developments state.

Celebrating our first anniversary!
Thanks to the support of our fans, we are celebrated its first anniversary of early access.

The game has sold a total of 25,000 units, and we will continue to develop the game next year so that even more users can enjoy it, including the upcoming DLC and 1.0, as well as the console versions that are scheduled to follow the 1.0.

Web Editor Development Status
We apologize for any inconvenience caused. We would like to provide you with further information on the scenario editor that is currently under development.

We had originally announced that the scenario editor would be available by the end of 2022, but in light of the development status and other factors, we have decided to delay the service launch to Q2, 2023, so that we can deliver it to you in a more stable state. We apologize for the delay.

bit teased: [...]

DLC scenario "Prisoner of the Battles" to be released in March 2023!
As for the additional scenario downloadable contents that we have previously announced, we are pleased to announce that we will release the first additional scenario, Prisoner of the Battles in March 2023.

Wizardry Gaiden: Prisoner of the Battles the predecessor to The Five Ordeals, was released as a standalone game in 2005 and later ported to PS2, iOS, and other platforms. It is a large-volume adventure set in multiple dungeons that can be tackled by the same group of adventurers. The items acquired by the adventurers have random magical effects, making for a more modern treasure hunting experience. The dungeons are also have with a trap that constantly displays a "mini-map" for each level, minimizing the use of mapping spells once sufficient exploration has been done.

This DLC version will be have some changes to the dungeon content and additional content to make it even more powerful.

Please wait for further information on specific release dates and prices.

We have made the difficult decision that most of the DLC for this game will be more expensive than the average Steam game. We believe this is necessary to ensure the longevity of the development of The Five Ordeals and to allow us to provide you with the DLC and content you desire in the future to the extent possible.

On the other hand, we have not given up on making The Five Ordeals accessible to as many users as possible, and we plan to make several improvements in the area of new users, including addition of a new default scenario before the 1.0. We sincerely hope that you will understand and support the sale of DLC for this title so that we can realize these plans more smoothly and with higher quality.

[...]

More information.

 

[Drithius]

Despite being fully playable in this form, I'm still repelled by the statement: "Early Access title Wizardry: The Five Ordeals will get a DLC next March."

...And that's as a blobber fan. Must be a beancounter decision rooted in cultural contrasts.

 

[JDR13]

I'm wondering why it's even in early access to begin with. This is a port of a 15 year old game. What is there to EA? The translation?

Then there's also this...

We have made the difficult decision that most of the DLC for this game will be more expensive than the average Steam game. We believe this is necessary to ensure the longevity of the development of The Five Ordeals and to allow us to provide you with the DLC and content you desire in the future to the extent possible.

Yeah ok.

 

[forgottenlor]

So, as someone who owns an early access copy. This is not the owner of the original game. It is a small developer who bought the rights to the title. The Five Ordeals was sort of the Japanese equivilent of the gold box Unlimited Adventures. It was an editor with a scenario. The developer is not only porting and updating the original, but also the editor and a number of user made scenarios from Japan. I think there are around 10 extra scenarios included. So its a lot of material. Also they are doing the English translation.

 

[Drithius]

Do you know what the devs are still planning for the base game? There's comments in the forum that it's fully playable, but what exactly is still missing that you know of?

 

[forgottenlor]

The editor is not finished. They keep fixing bugs which come from porting over various scenarios. They keep on finding minor bugs to fix, so even if it is playable, there still seems like there is room for polish. The original game was not in English at all, so they've had to fix font sizes for input, for example They also have been trying to modernize some things. I think its mostly one programmer and 1 translator working on stuff, so its going slowly.
I just also wanted to say the editor will be an online tool, because the developer was sued early on by the rights holder of Wizardry 1-5, who didn't want anyone to recreate Wizardry 1-5 in the editor. So you will be able to make a scenario in the editor, but the developer will only let it be published if it doesn't get them in legal trouble.

 

[bjon045]

Is the editor really limited to 30x30 maps as some of the reviews indicate?

 

[forgottenlor]

I don't know as there is no access to it. So, I think people are coming to this conclusion from user made scenarios. Most of the maps in Elminage Gothic are 20X20 (I just replayed it but you can just look here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=315776967). Also most maps in W:LOLS are also 20X20 (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1990040545), so I wouldn't be surprised if its true. 30X30 maps are actually quite a bit larger than standard Wizardry maps.

 

[bjon045]

I don't know as there is no access to it. So, I think people are coming to this conclusion from user made scenarios. Most of the maps in Elminage Gothic are 20X20 (I just replayed it but you can just look here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=315776967). Also most maps in W:LOLS are also 20X20 (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1990040545), so I wouldn't be surprised if its true. 30X30 maps are actually quite a bit larger than standard Wizardry maps.

I guess as long as they can be seamlessly joined together it is fine. The maps in Wiz6/7 do get quite a bit larger than that and I wonder how the automap would handle it nicely. It was great fun mapping out locations like Giant Mountain and seeing how they all fit together - all the maps actually fit together perfectly in both wiz 6 and 7.

 

[HiddenX]

The scenario Prisoners of the Battles will be released on March 30.