Playtest Recap & What’s Ahead

We ran the community playtest between June 5th and June 15th — the very first playtest of Band of Crusaders — and we are beyond thrilled to share some highlights with you!

Despite this being our very first public test, we made the adventurous decision to open access to content creators. They were not only able to preview the game, but also stream, record, and publish videos about Band of Crusaders. This creator-focused phase ended on July 6th, so it’s high time for a proper summary.

First off, a huge thank you to everyone who participated:

To our incredible community playtesters — thank you for sharing your first look at a playable version of the game. You’re all awesome!

While Band of Crusaders is a game that fulfills our own creative fantasies (we're building it for ourselves, in a sense), we’re equally building it for you — and this playtest has shown we can build it with you.

By the numbers:

● Over 150 participants joined the playtest ● According to Steam, players spent a median of 1.5 hours playing ● Some players exceeded 5 or even 10 hours — a huge milestone for us!

Community engagement:

During the playtest, we released 4 patches, addressing stability and UX issues. And speaking of improvements — the feedback was tremendous. We received over 500 pieces of feedback through:

● The BoC Playtest Discord ● The dedicated feedback questionnaire ● Social media comments ● A fantastic written essay compiled by mdval_de and his Twitch community

Key insights:

You expressed that the Campaign Map and Combat are equally important priorities for the next development phase.

● On the Campaign Map side, many suggestions revolved around features we already plan to add — particularly world simulation and player influence. ● For Combat, we noticed the need for better onboarding and tutorials, and you often asked for more varied combat encounters and overall deeper tactical gameplay.

We’re now focusing on fixing some remaining bugs and synthesizing your feedback with our dev and publishing teams. And yes — we also noticed your encouraging words and praise for specific aspects of the game, even at this early stage. That means the world to us!

After 3.5 years of development, we still see so many missing pieces and imperfections — but your support recharges our motivation.

Some interesting highlights from the playtest:

● Most active member in the playtest channels: Danny Benny 😎 ● Most watched video: Jackie Fish ● Most concurrent viewers on a stream: Writing Bull ● Most “ambassadorship-y” streamer: Mr AtomicDuck

We’re extremely grateful for all the communication, feedback, and effort from our community. Rest assured: your input is shaping Band of Crusaders into the best game it can possibly be.

That’s it for now. We can’t wait to deliver an even stronger experience next time you return to Band of Crusaders!