It’s been about a million years since we last checked in on Istaria, fka Horizons, but that changes today thanks to the Virtrium team’s developer letter posted over the weekend, which looks back at 2020 and ahead to 2021. And while last year was focused on storylines and quests and tech, this year is slated to be the “year of polish.”
“What this entails is that we will be focusing extra attention on player progression throughout the mainline content currently in the game; from the first steps on Spirit Isle and Skalkaar to the various adventures in the Barasavian Desert,” Virtrium says. “Already we have had several developers run throughout Spirit Isle, Skalkaar and New Trismus on all base classes including dragons, repeatedly, and gathering notes as they’ve done so to review how the overall flow could be improved. Delta 312 contains a large amount of the early-game changes resulting from this, from giving all base classes that needed it some form of better self-sustain to whacking some of the enemies with the nerf bat repeatedly (looking at you Uddorakh).”
The devs also discuss tweaks to the quest system, new content in the Western Deadlands, new and updated creature models, new models for all the playable races, and improved armor visuals. Wyverns in particular are due for love, and that’s a big deal in a game where you can literally play as a dragon.
Want more Istaria? The Battle Bards dipped into Istaria’s music back in 2019.
