NeoDuel: Backpack Monsters – One Month Anniversary Celebration Blog and Update

Happy 1-month anniversary to all Dueslists!

In today's dev blog, we're looking forward to the future after one month of launch. What were the highlights so far, some fun stats about our Duelist's performance, as well as to what to expect for the future of Neoduel: Backpack Monsters.

Despite some of bugs and issues in the launch week, we are generally pleased with how the release went, and for that we'd want to take this time to thank everyone from your Duelists to our dev team and publishing partners. Everyone involved and our community has been incredibly receptive and transparent with questions, concerns, and recommendations, and we have taken everything on board which has shaped the future of the game.

THE 1-MONTH LAUNCH ANNIVERSARY RECAP:

Since the launch on September 30th, we've released a healthy spread of patches both fixing key issues, but also adding new features, Cosmions, Upgrades and much more. In case you missed the news, here's the recap:

• AdjustedNew Fusion Element and Cosmionsadded on launch day, the Ice element brought a change to the meta for those that have been with us since the early testing and demo days. We're really glad people are finding some fun synergies with Ice Cosmions and making use of the Frostbite keywords. Fun fact, Ice Cosmions were the least changed in terms of stats and effect since the launch.
• AdjustedComplete CodexThroughout the month, we've updated and improved the Codex adding a bunch of new features to help newcomers and even veterans familiarize themselves with as much of the game as they can. Accessible from the main menu as well as during games, the Codex explains all game mechanics, features a full list of all Cosmions, Fusion recipe lists, as well as some fun flavor text for our cosmic critters.
• AddedNew Cosmions!While the launch date Ice Cosmion drops upped the full roster by 13 new creatures, we also introduced a new Pedro evolution, a Duopon fusion and a new neutral Cosmion known as Naci. The latter might seem cute, but he's a good counter to those Frostbite builds.

• New Game Mode The main core mode of the game is a ranked run where your performance affects your daily, weekly and all-time elo standing and rank. We've introduced recently a Casual version of that mode, to make sure people had a way to practice without the fear of dropping that much in Elo rank.

• AddedSo many QoL updates!This is where our Neoduel community really shined, and we'd like to thank them once more for their input. Throughout this past month, their feedback helped us optimize some features, and we've introduced new icon designs, optimized UI, lots of visual changes, keyboard shortcuts, fusion lock, and so much more.

THE NEXT MILESTONE UPDATE: ENTER THE DEPTHS OF THE SWAMP

Now what we've done this recap, we've been working on our next milestone patch, set for launch in November and it's going be to one where Duelist will need to master the art of hostile environment survival: Swamp.

While we originally planned to have Lava as our next Fusion Element in our roadmap, the current meta with our players had us change it to Swamp. We won't delve that much into the Element for now and its associated keyword, but know that this decision of a change is better for the health of the current builds. Expect new themed Cosmions, Upgrades, and some other bigger surprises for our version 1.1 of the game.