Dev Blog 6: Awakening in Elysium
In Echoes of Elysium, airships aren’t just tools for exploring a shattered world—they are your sanctuary, your lifeline, and your home. Early in development, we had players starting on land, tasked with repairing a broken airship. But something felt off. It didn’t spark the excitement we were looking for, nor did it connect players to the heart of our vision: that the airship is where you survive, thrive, and build your future.
So, in true game development fashion, we tossed that approach right out the window. Instead, we decided to launch players directly onto their airship, immersing them in the core experience from the very first moments of gameplay.
Players now begin aboard their very own version of “Heron’s death skiff”—a modest vessel ferrying them into the mysterious afterlife of Elysium. But this is just the beginning. From this humble starting craft, players will immediately set to work transforming it into a magnificent airship, carving their path across the skies of Elysium.
Ruins, Dungeons, and such
Flying around the world in Echoes of Elysium feels incredible. The rush of leaping off your airship to dive into ruins, gather resources, and battle enemies is core to the experience. But as we spent more time soaring through the skies, something started to feel... flat.
We’d glide down to explore a ruin, fight a few enemies, grab some loot, and then hop right back onto our airship to leave the island behind. Rinse, repeat. Sure, it worked—but it was missing something. It lacked the tension, mystery, and excitement we wanted players to feel. Where was the thrill? The danger? The adventure?
We knew what we had to do: dungeons.
One of our rockstar artists took our existing ruins kit and transformed it into something extraordinary. They built a maze, cloaked it in one of our “density graphs” (Part of our badass proc-gen engine - more to come later on that) added terrifying monsters, packed it with valuable resources, and stirred it all together to create a dungeon brimming with surprises and danger.
And here’s the catch: you can’t just peek inside from the comfort of your airship. To uncover what’s hidden within, you’ll have to go to ground—leaving the safety of your ship behind—and fight your way through on foot. It’s just you, the dungeon, and whatever’s lurking inside.
