WorldShards DevBlog - Graphics Update

Hi folks!

It’s been a while since our last update on WorldShard’s development journey, so we decided to show the highlights of what we’ve been working on so far. Hope you’ll enjoy this paw-tasic dive into WorldShards!

This spring we put together the first playable build, showcased it at the MEFCC, GDC, & Unity Developer Day, allowing us to gather lots of valuable feedback and impressions. Though this version of the game is not public (stay tuned — when the time comes, we’ll let you know about the public demo and its dates), the work on the next version is in full swing. Right now however, we want to show you the ways in which WorldShards has already transformed.

One of the most important visual aspects in any game is the main character. After all, the environment changes while you wander around the game's world, but your character is constantly there, a focal point on your screen.

If you’ve seen some of our earlier snapshots, you may have noticed that we used a low-poly approach for the models. However, we never intended to have this in the final version.

Looking back at the models - how they used to look and the way they are now!

So, what do we want WorldShards to look like? We find a special charm in the low-poly visuals, so we’re not going to fully abandon it, but we’ll be giving the game an extra layer of detail making it look a lot more high-definition.

Check out this comparison to see what we mean!

This is just a glimpse of the many improvements we've made. But have you ever wondered how these changes look from our side? Let us show you the creation process of two 3D models – the Warg and one of our crafting stations. Seeing each step of the iterative process and the evolution is clear as day!

By the way, can you guess what this crafting station is used for?

So, what graphical improvements are we currently working on?

• Environment (from the lighting to the flower textures)

• Models (player, enemies, animals) and animations (movement, idles, attacks, etc.)

• VFX (spells, abilities, environmental, etc.)

And as a parting gift, we want to give you one last teaser. Besides graphical improvements, we've been working on a bunch of new features for WorldShards. For example, crafting equipment and building player housing. We're really excited about these features and can't wait to share more with you! You can keep up to date by following us on Twitter or joining our Discord server for more news and daily updates!