Age of Wonders 4 Dev Diary 17: Post-Launch

Published by 31 May, 2023 0 likes

Welcome to the first Age of Wonders 4 development diary since release. My name is Lennart Sas game director / studio manager at Triumph.

Today we’ll be reflecting on the launch, the reception and we are going to be looking forward to the big Dragon Dawn DLC and specifically the free Wyvern Update that accompanies it.

Reflecting on the LaunchWow! What a launch.

For us the Age of Wonders 4 launch has been a dream: both a critical and commercial success.

Paradox put out a press release the game is the fastest selling in the series; selling 250k units day 4 of release. We are very grateful to all the people making this possible.

The launch has been a rollercoaster in other ways too of course; some may have seen the user reviews directly after release.

This was primarily caused by people not being able to launch the game after purchasing. This was unfortunate and we started investigating and preparing a hot fix which alleviated some of the issue.

Luckily the user review score quickly climbed up in the hours after launch. Since then we have made a number of patches to improve stability and performance in the various platforms.

We also got help from one of the graphic card manufacturers who fixed their driver. We were happy to see the core premise of the game gaining massive traction.

The faction creation and evolution plus all the new systems were widely embraced by fans but also appealed to a new audience.

Of course we have also seen feedback and criticisms for a subsection of the fan base (that actually started as soon as we showed the route we were taking) that preferred a more traditional approach (to factions especially).

In future updates we’ll keep on investing in faction content allowing both for more distinction in gameplay and growing the number of possible fantasies.

Modding is off to a promising start, with the Steam Workshop already having 285 mods at the time of writing.

We see people adding in new content like creative additional Tomes but also making interesting adjustments to game flow. This is very inspiring to the team.

All in all the Age of Wonders 4 has had a very healthy start and we are looking forward to expanding the game with your feedback.

Of course we have mapped out the DLCs for the coming year but we also expect to do a lot in the supporting patches and updates.

The Wyvern Update and Dragon DawnThe Dragon Dawn Content Pack and the massive free Wyvern update that accompanies it are nearing completion.

I can already say that the date may be closer than you think. We are on target to make this the fastest DLC / major patch release after launch for an AoW game.

The Wyvern UpdateThe accompanying (free) Wyvern Update already has over 10 pages of patch notes.

Here are some provisional highlights I can share with you: (thanks Jordi and Filip for summarizing this list! )