Everything starts with an idea. Whether it’s to build, achieve, or do something great, the inception of an idea is what can grow to define entire lives, companies, and even worlds. For gamers, we tend to think a lot about ideas. From exploring undiscovered horizons to manifesting novel experiences, we work primarily with ideas and how to best synthesize them into the best versions of themselves. We create brand new journeys from timeless concepts - this is the soul, the very essence of what games are all about.

The past year we’ve been steadily at work on development of Shadow War - a next generation hybrid action title for fans of strategic pulse-pounding combat and stylish action gameplay. We draw inspiration from the whole of our collective gaming experience, and though Shadow War is an action title, we look to strategy games, mobile, and even tabletop for inspiration.


As a studio, we asked ourselves - what would you get if you took the production quality of a triple A title with the well defined characters of a hero based game and wrapped it up in a compelling story of a top secret futuristic conflict? Our aspirations go beyond these broad strokes, however. True action fans will recognize a lot of the systems we are implementing, though their implementation is novel and never attempted to this degree. For the uninitiated, head on over to our demo page to learn more about the game.

To summarize, Shadow War is the intersection of futurism, fantasy, action, and our competitive nature. It is a scintillating tale of ordinary people who become extraordinary, not by being born great, but by believing in their truth and who they are. Make no mistake, however, this world is not sunshine and roses - it’s dark and full of gripping terrors. But by brushing up on your skills and teaming up with your friends, this world can become yours.

Though it’s been just a year for our studio officially, we’ve been working toward this game for far longer. We’ve been at work on it when discussing the worldbuilding of William Gibson, the action mechanics of Devil May Cry, or the futuristic soundscapes of Blade Runner. And we’re almost ready to show the world exactly what it’s all about, and why we’re so excited about it.

In the following posts we will be discussing more details of the project, development updates, diaries, and more as we go public. We will also be revealing additional details around how to get access to the game, as well as how to become a closed alpha tester. We look forward to gathering feedback from the community as we refine the experience and make Shadow War the best hybrid action game it can be.

Watch this space.

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An Introduction

Greetings Shadownet!

This time we'd like to share a bit with you about our design philosophy when building Shadow War. This is the first article in a series, and first we will go over some of our early decisions when making this game. Later articles will be about aesthetic choices and some of our design pillars.

When we first conceived of Shadow War, we envisioned foremost our general combat loop. We imagined black operation missions fought between elite teams who use a variety of advanced technologies, cybernetic/biogenic enhancements, borderline-magical powers, or some combination of the three to achieve victory. Mostly, we wanted to use those things to justify very stylish and active combat. We didn't want a hyper-lethal tactical shooter, but something where you could actually expect a decent brawl–something where you didn't feel fearful of turning a corner and striding directly into a fight. We are seeking to build a game akin to modern day action titles, although a toned down a tad as you will be fighting other players rather than scripted enemies.

![Surge Abilities](https://res.cloudinary.com/dodlkmnk3/image/upload/v1677713208/Surge_Abilities_aef26e7727.jpg)

For the sake of style, although we knew we needed ranged combat, we chose to make this game primarily melee-based. This is reflected in all of our designs. If a character has a ranged weapon, they probably have some sort of melee weapon to back it up. Consider Surge, for example. Though he's our prototypical shooter character, one of the first things we conceived for him was his melee weapon. His kit is even clearly built for ranged combat foremost, as his ultimate is utterly useless with his sword drawn, yet the sword remains as a prominent part of his design and his kit provides a hefty amount of melee support. Even Surge, who should spend most of his time in the back line providing ranged fire for his team, should be able to execute some stylish melee combos, and melee is by far the more effective strategy when in close quarters. There is so much more room for personality in melee combat compared to ranged combat, and thus melee is what we choose as our core combat loop. Of course, Surge will spend most of his time at range - and his team will appreciate the firepower - but even he will have to take up the blade sometimes.

![Rising Anthem](https://res.cloudinary.com/dodlkmnk3/image/upload/v1677713216/Rising_Anthem_d0fc4ea811.png)

Next was our choice of camera perspective. We debated a tad between first- and third-person, but ultimately we felt third to be more appropriate, for it allows a player to observe a whole combat unfold. They see not only their foe’s attacks against them, but their own in response. When playing Shadow War, one is able to fully enjoy the design and combat style of a character. It is our goal that players may take pride in more than simple knife skins and generic slashes. 

Beyond the aesthetic considerations, we also felt that third-person is much easier to get into. When checking footage from a variety of games, we found that high-level footage from first-person games could often be a bit disorienting. To truly thrive in such games, it is necessary to be able to quickly process your surroundings and constantly look around to maintain situational awareness-thus, skilled players in these games are very fast at that. One of our developers described footage of a skilled Apex Legends player as "whiplash-inducing." By contrast, a third-person perspective provides far more information and thus players can focus on other fundamentals of the gameplay instead. 

Finally, our time-to-kill (TTK) was another important thing to establish. Although squishier Shadow War operatives can die in a second or less if they do nothing to defend themselves, we aim for a TTK of 5 to 15 seconds in most cases. Such a window not only allows ample time for a player to retaliate, but also ensures that players frequently utilize their operative's entire toolkit while fighting. Additionally, when one is secure in the knowledge that they will not die for simply turning a corner, it is far easier to take risks and seek out the action. We do not want Shadow War to become a highly-lethal waiting game.
![Operative Technology](https://res.cloudinary.com/dodlkmnk3/image/upload/v1677713212/Operative_Technology_70eb6f7e88.png)

Funnily enough, the TTK influenced and is influenced by the lore of the game. Our triad of technology-cybernetics-magic (I know cybernetics is technology but I mean shield generators, power armor, combat computers, etc) was actually a means to justify this. When your defenses allow you to shrug off attacks which would kill a normal human, combat becomes a lot more protracted and brutal. This also is how we justify melee combat in this game, as there isn't much reason to engage hand-to-hand when you can simply dispatch somebody with a single bullet. When a bullet has to go through an energy shield, an armor plating, and a superhuman physiology, the odds of a kill go down dramatically. 

Next time we will discuss how "magic" works in Shadow War and how it influences our aesthetic choices.

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Developer Log 1 - The Game

Greetings Shadownet!

Welcome back to the monthly developer log. Note that our blog is written by different individuals - while last month’s post was written by our design lead and revolved around the game design, as creative director I’ll be tackling more of the other parts of the game that help to define the style and setting. This time I’d like to focus on the story of Shadow War, some of our goals in defining our world, and some interesting challenges we faced along the way.

![Advent Ultra.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dodlkmnk3/image/upload/v1680694911/Advent_Ultra_63a93efba8.png)

# A Little Bit of Everything


In order to define game mechanics, visuals, and setting, we had to first decide what sort of audience and player base we wanted to cater to. In terms of building long-standing IPs, the most successful of these have been the ones that have vastly different appeals all wrapped up under one unifying story.

When people talk about their favorite IP’s, it’s usually with characters being the focus point of their discussion - with preferences wildly varying. Some people prefer heroic, iconic characters that you see on the cover/poster of their favorite IPs, while others are obsessed with sneakier characters, making plans and machinations in the background. Some like John Snow, some prefer Littlefinger. The differences are endless, and you can find all sorts of favorites by asking all sorts of different people about their preferences.

![Patriots Division Closeup.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dodlkmnk3/image/upload/v1680695968/Patriots_Division_Closeup_0d5d056490.png)

Scope is also important. Broader stories are also more capable of zeroing in on exactly what excites certain audiences. When you have a smaller tale, it can be difficult to deliver on many different aspects, while a larger scale can give you the room you need to vary scenarios. Frame stories are a commonly used trope to tell a wider range of stories (1001 Arabian Nights being the prime example) enveloped within the context of a general setting. As a consequence of this setup, it also means that people can take the structure we’ve laid out and make their own works with it - be it art, stories, music, or other content.

Finally, aesthetic delivery is key. Especially in video games, people like to really feel what they’re playing, so you have to marry both the story of the character and the playstyle into a cohesive unit. The best way to do this is to have a single aesthetic you want to achieve with a particular character - that way you can let that guide the gameplay and story creation process with one unified goal. In line with the previous pillars, this is another area that people have wildly different preferences for. Consider someone who plays assassins in MOBA games versus someone who prefers to support their team mates from afar. What sort of stories do these playstyles implicitly perpetuate? How does this build into the player fantasy?

When it comes to Shadow War then, we had a few clear takeaways from early discussions:

Make it character based, so that it appeals to many different peoples
Make the story generalized, so people can make their own stories
Have aesthetic bounds that don’t appeal to everyone, but appeal to someone

![Seeker Megachurch.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dodlkmnk3/image/upload/v1680694054/Seeker_Megachurch_f9ee63a005.png)

# Mixing Fantasy with Futurism


Our first big challenge was thinking about the level of technology and magic we would want in our setting. By this time we had already figured out that we wanted to tell a postmodern story about rival factions waging secret wars with each other - but we had our first true challenge. How do you reconcile magic with technology? We don’t really mean it in the functional sense - sure, you can create an ice wizard with futuristic gadgets that allow them to manipulate ice. But does a futuristic ice manipulator really deliver on the aesthetic of an ice mage? We didn’t think so.

In truth, there are tons of people who love fantasy stories - tales of preparing powerful magic, casting spells, and other hallmarks of the genre. Just look at Harry Potter or Dungeons and Dragons for great examples of such. Taking something like Harry Potter and putting it in the future would work (you get something like Warhammer)… but would it appeal to the same vast audience of children around the world? This was our first big challenge.

Shadow War takes place in the future in 2050, in a world dominated by technology, cyberware, and with a certain dystopian vibe reminiscent of the seminal works of the genre. But going beyond the basic structures, we also wanted things like ice wizards to work - and it had to make sense in the world too. It had to make as much sense as if your friend called you one day and showed you that he actually has superpowers. It had to be real.

We spent several weeks trying to figure it all out before we ultimately came up with the system. A mix of modern technology and fantastical magic that allowed us to reasonably fit both modern and fantasy themes in the same frame story. At its core, the magic system is more fantasy than futuristic - but that’s exactly how it should be, and one that we hope can appeal to those DnD wizard lovers out there. In a following post, we will be specifying the magic system and how it all works - both in-game and in the world.

R


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Developer Log 2 - The Setting

Greetings Shadownet.

This is the next part in an ongoing blog series discussing the development of Shadow War - its features, narratives, game mechanics, and how they helped define some of the other aspects of the game. In the [last post](https://www.shadowwar.com/blog/dev-log-2-the-game), we discussed some of the broad strokes of the setting - in this one, I'd like to go into specifics with respect to the magic system.

When we decided to add magical elements to Shadow War, we had two goals in mind:

**1** - Make it full of personality and vaguely scientific and;

**2** - Don't be some fantasy setting where magic is plentiful and an object of envy

To achieve this, we wanted to use magical or paranormal phenomena that had been the subject of study in recent times. If nothing else, such practices tend to be a tad more rigorous than fantasy ideas of medieval alchemists and wizards who can turn lead to gold or create fireballs from thin air. They also violate our suspension of disbelief a bit less, as such practices tend to be considered "occult" rather than "fantasy." This brought us to draw inspiration from a number of enduring practices, such as remote viewing, psionics, or chaos magic. We'll explain how we drew from these a bit later in this post.

![Action poses 2.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/dodlkmnk3/image/upload/v1683276221/Action_poses_2_d4e74aa29c.jpg)

Beyond just choosing the basis of a magical system, we also needed to tie it to the Shadow War setting. Shadow War is an extremely technocratic setting. Society's progressing quickly, both socially and technologically. At the same time, much of the average person's life is dictated in large part by corporations, who treat them as mere pawns in the pursuit of profit and progress. To reflect that, we wanted a realistic basis which felt both callous and confusing, yet also scientifically-rigorous. We therefore turned to g-factor, or as it's more commonly known, IQ. Its scientific reproducibility, combined with a lack of understanding on how exactly it predicts things, made it a perfect basis. 

Thus, ψ-factor, or psi-factor was born. It combined the statistical regularity of g with a whole assortment of magical elements. The cognitive basis that it inherits from g was also quite beneficial, as many types of modern chaos magic are little more than finding ways to trick yourself. Sigil magic, for example, is just personalized psychological tricks. 

![archive.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dodlkmnk3/image/upload/v1683274678/archive_57de0e2d4a.png)

Remote viewing was another important influence. Generally, everything that remote viewing seeks to do can be done with digital technology; it’s just the transfer of information. The significance of remote viewing is doing this without technology. That significance revealed an important niche of psi: It can serve as a replacement or complement for technology. This is why some Shadow War operatives stride into battle in full power armor, and others walk in wearing... clothes and maybe a few extra high-tech accessories. The latter doesn’t need a full suit if they can protect themselves with their mind, nor do they need batteries if they power their gear with their mind as well.


As for how one gains magical powers, it's rather straightforward: An individual is born. They have their psi-factor tested. Some of them, approximately 1 in a million, score rather high. Those who score high, should they suffer some great trauma or stress, may undergo an epigenetic awakening. If they undergo such an awakening (usually by accident), their psi abilities activate, and they are classified as ultrahumans. It is these abilities which form the basis of magic.

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Ultrahuman abilities vary considerably, both in magnitude and effect. At the lower end are those that can interface with and power their equipment. At the upper end are those who can create truly extraordinary effects, such as causing objects to combust, or manipulating matter, or even apparent violations of the laws of physics. Compared to their mundane mortal counterparts, ultrahuman operatives also tend to be outfitted more impractically. Their abilities depend a great deal on personal belief, and so keepsakes or aesthetics may make them perform better. The exact mechanism of this is, of course, not understood. One must simply accept that the heat of the combustion correlates directly with how stylish the fit is.

Of course, these abilities are not without drawbacks. The stress necessary to become an ultrahuman is quite traumatic and always leaves a scar. This makes ultrahumans into rather neurotic and sensitive people, who often struggle to survive alone in society. Partially this is from the trauma, and partially because they have dangerous abilities. Friends, family, and law enforcement generally do not want to deal with somebody who can cause objects to explode with a thought.

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Additionally, nothing in this world is free. To do such extraordinary things requires extraordinary resources, and ultrahumans have high metabolisms. In order to use their abilities, they generally need to consume about 5x the nutrients and calories of a normal person. Without that, they have no powers; they are simply a person with a tragic past.

With this characterization, we wanted to capture the idea that ultrahumans were exceptional people - but only when they had the proper support. This is not some world where gods walk among men and sow fear and envy in the mortal masses. This is a world where that girl who survived a terrible house fire can now make objects combust, and people are scared of what she’ll do with it. It is not necessarily a position to envy, but rather a unique experience. It's a world where everybody's vulnerable, just in different ways. 

In short, Shadow War's magic is personality-based, psionic magic with some psychometrics thrown in. We hope that this gives you a better idea on the world we're trying to create, and how we hope to contrast gritty technocratic ideas with more fantastical and idealistic ones.


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Developer Log 3 - Magic

Greetings, Shadownet.

Welcome back to the Shadow War developer log. As we approach our first public product (and who can guess what that may be?) we’d like to go over the economics of the game - how the system works, our plans for monetization, and how we’re implementing a few next-gen technologies into our stack.

# The War Economy

At its core, Shadow War is similar to other games of its genre - we believe a lot of the contemporary titles in the market have good systems, and we don’t feel we need to rock the boat much there. Games of late have gotten a huge amount of _resource_ creep, however - which all only serve to obfuscate just what you’re actually getting. Gems, crystals, tickets, passes, rolls, and a million other currencies are just plain confusing. For Shadow War, we wanted to pull that back into a much more simple system. Shadow War has just a few currencies:

**War Bonds**: These are free to play currencies you get just for playing the game. War Bonds will let you unlock operatives, customizations, and lots more. Bonds will always come in handy, so be sure to stock up!

**Credits**: This is the paid currency, and allows you to get cosmetic skins and the like. Not much else to say here.

**Shadowcredits**: This is a rare currency and will not be purchasable on the shop. You’ll earn Shadowcredits in the game for various activities (as part of season rewards for example) and this prized currency is most useful for acquiring the highest quality of skins.

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# Shadowcredits

As mentioned above, Shadowcredits will give folks the greatest cosmetic skins in the game - however, do note that these are only cosmetic. There is no pay to win element in Shadow War, and a free to play player will always be just as strong as a player who purchases items, whether via Credits or Shadowcredits. As for the Shadowcredits themselves, we have some interesting ways to distribute it among both free players and those who want to put up some capital. For free players, you’ll be able to earn Shadowcredits by:

**1** - Creating community content

**2** - Ending a ranked season with high placing

**3** - Winning them via various in-game tournaments and events

Even if you’re a paid player, Shadowcredits will still not be directly available on the store - you’ll have to trade with your fellow players in order to gain access to them. A few ways for paid players to acquire Shadowcredits include:


**1** - Acquiring them from other players

**2** - Trading Skin Modules for them

**3** - Purchasing Arena entries and staking Shadowcredits (more on Arena in a future blog)

We have some other interesting mechanisms for Shadowcredit distribution, which we will outline in a later post.

We’ve discussed the in-game resources; now let’s talk about what you can get with them.

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# Customization

Customization is at the heart of Shadow War. Whether via War Bonds, Credits, or Shadowcredits, players will be able to trick their characters out to their hearts content - as well as the various other features within the game, including loadouts, banners and so on. A limited list of the things you’ll be able to customize include:

Player profiles

Avatars

Banners

Animations

Quotes

Weapons

Operative Skins


# Skin Modules

Skins are the most central aspect of the game economy - because if you can’t flex, what’s the point? Skin Modules allow you to alter the appearance of your operative in new and exciting ways. Skin Module rarities are:

**Rare** - Can be bought with War Bonds, Credits, or dropped from loot caches. Soulbound.

**Ultra** - Can be bought with Credits or dropped from loot caches. Soulbound.

**Legendary** - Can be bought with Shadowcredits only. Tradeable.

Rares will allow for any player to get some customization for their operatives, and allows for a free to play path to accessing most of the skin system in the game. Ultras and upward have a more unique feel and will push the thematic boundaries of operatives more. Visually, Legendaries will have the same base as Ultras in quality, however they will have various trims and affixes that take them to the next level. The big advantage in Legendaries is that they are tradeable - meaning you can trade them with other players for Shadowcredits, do direct P2P trading of skins, and even hold your skins in your own hardware wallet via our bridge. There's lots more in store for the skin system, which we will dedicate a blog or two towards in the future - look out.

# Conclusion

We hope this explained the basics of the game economy - our goals for this were to keep the resource creep low, create a path for free to play players to earn the highest tier of skins and resources, as well as allow for players to own their assets directly, letting them trade with other players without any intermediaries. The skin system should be thought of as something very similar to what gamers are used to - just with a few extra bonuses and benefits that we believe will enable players to make Shadow War their own.

Until next time!


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Developer Log 4 - Customization and Economy

Greetings Shadownet!

Welcome back to the SHADOW WAR development log. This time we'd like to discuss a critical gameplay element - maps. If a PvP game is a three layered cake, then maps constitute the base foundation of the final product. It's a core component of our cake construction that the rest of the elements rely upon in order to achieve their maximum potential.

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A well done map can grow to define entire genres. When we look back at history, we even see maps that have transcended the games in which they originated. Take a look at dust2 for example -  here's a map that became so popular, it's been emulated in tons of games since inception. Here's a few of the examples:

Western Crossfire has had Black Widow and Black Widow 2.0. Chinese Crossfire has additionally had Desert, [**Desert 2.0**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5zVrxn18Ek) and Nano Desert.

[**WARMODE**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm-DwMg7FNQ) has one

[**Sudden Attack**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqtdQjuYd6Q) (published by Nexon, publisher of Counter-Strike: Online) has one

The list goes on, but you get the point. A well designed map enables fun gameplay, gives tons of strategic options, is simple enough for new players to understand, and has that iconic memorable element that will give gamers nostalgia for years to come. Of course, synthesizing the perfect map isn't something you can just cook up your first try. Still, we have a few useful recipes that we hope can get us close to the perfect mix.

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# Location, Location, Location

First up is diversity of location. A good location sets itself apart from the crowd by having unique elements that it can inedibly embed in the minds of players as "that one cool map." An easy way to get there is by making a very unique environment. In SHADOW WAR, the maps range from high-rises in New York City, to deep underwater levels that induce a sense of claustrophobic closeness. If you're looking for your typical PvP environment, an open field or a senseless maze, you won't find it here.

# Modes

Next up are our game modes. We will dedicate a full blog post to this later as it develops, but we have a few ideas on modes and how we want the game to be played. Deathmatch is fun, but doesn't last very long - to that end, we are making most of the maps oriented around objectives, with various strategic options for players that take their role and team into account. Do you have a strong team that can beat others in a 5v5? Take the middle objective and go for the big point score. Do you have a team that prefers to outmanuever the enemy with speed and mobility? Go for a sub-objective oriented approach and avoid the big team fights. Do you have a team that excels in skirmishes? Go for a combination strategy - in SHADOW WAR, the choice is yours.

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# Lebenskraft Factory

One of our launch maps is also the map we are using to test much of the game on - it's called Factory, and takes place deep within the mountains of the Kresanica, a mountain in Poland. Inside the heart of the mountain lies a factory built to produce next-generation machines that are capable of combatting extraplanetary threats. There's a lot of flavor to the place (and even a rude german Roomba of sorts that yells at you if you get in the way of its cleaning!), and also a lot of options for strategic play built into its design. Here's what it currently looks like:

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# Conclusion

We have a lot of interesting takes on what we can do, both with map design as well as objective mechanisms that we will extrapolate on as we further develop these systems. Maps are an integral part of what makes a game, well, a game - and it's a key focus for production as we move through development. Look forward to more posts in the future as we delve further into this topic, discussing in finer detail and even revealing a few newer maps.

R



An Introduction

An Introduction

Developer Log 1 - The Game

Developer Log 2 - The Setting

Developer Log 3 - Magic

Developer Log 4 - Customization and Economy

Developer Log 5 - Maps