Development Diary: September 2025

Hello Reclaimers!

And welcome to your monthly update from the Rogue Core Factory.

It’s been another busy month, experimenting lots and finding a balance between being ambitious with new ideas and having to actually implement and fine-tune all those ideas.

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Update on Playtest 04

• Costume rework for the Reclaimers

• New guns: Now with more guns

• A big list of the major stuff we’re working on right now

Before we get into it, here is the usual disclaimer: Everything you see and read below is under development and may be subject to change. Nothing here is written in stone (or rock).

Alrighty. We’ll start with the People’s Choice Award for Most-Asked Question of September.

Where’s Playtest 04?

It’s still coming! But it’s delayed.

The main reason for this is we’re reworking the Mission Map and Intel system. The Mission Map is of course the whole UI for selecting missions, and Intel is our progression system for unlocking new mission lengths and cave complexities, difficulty levels and planetary zones. Basically, collecting data and deploying down in the mines earns you Intel, which allows you access to previously-classified facilities and features.

Both the Mission Map and Intel system have a big knock-on influence on a number of other important game systems, like cave generation, mission mutators, player power scaling and difficulty progression. So while the new Mission Map and Intel are under construction, it’s tough to package the rest of the game into something tidy and playable. We have also been working on a lot of other new features on top of all this, too – more on those down below.

At the end of the day, our goal is getting the game into shape for an early access release. It’s not about making it to the next playtest, though we get that there’s a lot of demand for that. We’ll run another one when we’re ready for more player feedback.

Our best guess for Playtest 04 is three weeks from now, but that could change. Doin’ what we can over here, and we’re happy with the progress and feedback so far.

Costume rework for all Reclaimers

As we’ve been pushing ahead on the cosmetic system for Rogue Core, it’s given us reason to revisit our initial character armors and who gets what gear.

When we designed the fancy new armor suit for our fifth class (who has been officially dubbed ‘Retcon’), it made the original four Reclaimers’ outfits look a little rudimentary. So we revisited each one to make it even cooler.

Here’s a look at the new armors as they are now. The facial models/hair/headgear you see here aren't necessarily representative of the character, this is just to show the armor suits.

Guardian

Slicer

Falconer

Spotter

Retcon

New guns: Now with more guns

Last month we took a look at a couple concept sketches for two new guns. After a month of tender care, those baby concepts have grown into in-game guns! And they have multiplied into more guns. Now we have five in the works: a battle rifle, an energy shotgun, another pistol, an assault SMG, and a smaller machine pistol.

Here's a look at how the Battle Rifle is coming along so far. We've implemented it into the game, but are still working on balance and polish (like the WIP weapon inspect animation below). Final sound design and weapon performance may change.

How