Despite RPGs being ostensibly about inhabiting a particular role, one core requirement is that you’ll continually grow in strength. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing Dragon Age Origins, Baldur’s Gate 3, or even Disco Elysium, the idea that down the line you’ll be stronger or more capable than you are right now is a tenet of the fantasies they embody. Brighter Shores, the new RPG from RuneScape creator Andrew Gower, is daring to do it differently, and it’s fair to say it hasn’t gone over entirely well with fans. In response, the developer has taken to Steam to justify its decision in the face of this backlash, begging players to “please give it a chance.”
The issue stems from the episodic structure in place in Brighter Shores. When starting out in this RPG you’ll choose a class and level up throughout the first episode, as is normal for a game of this type. The problem for fans is what happens when you hit the second episode, and every episode thereafter. Instead of continuing to level up you instead choose a new class, beginning your journey all over again. You can continue with your previous class, but only by returning to the chapter related to that particular one – any progress earned there will not necessarily carry over to the rest of the game.
It’s fair to say that this structure is controversial, with fans expressing dismay at the concept of starting over when progressing through the game. Developer Fen Research Ltd is aware of this, however, and has taken to Steam to explain its reasoning. “I would just like to reassure you that your hard work levelling up your professions is definitely NOT wiped, reset or made irrelevant when you go to a new episode!” Gower’s studio writes. “Your existing episode 1 professions remain untouched and are still useful anytime you are in Hopeport. You will find that you still regularly go back to Hopeport and use and further progress those professions.”
“It is NOT intended that you first ‘finish’ episode 1, then go on to episode 2 and never go back to episode 1 ever again. Instead, it is relatively easy to progress to each new episode, but even when you have reached the latest episode you are nowhere near finished. Instead, you can at any time choose any of the episodes you have unlocked and continue to level up further in that episode,” the developer continues.
“The episodes are also heavily interlinked, so you will regularly find yourself going back and forth between them. For example: You might use your episode 3 combat to kill some monsters for potion reagents. You might then take these reagents back to episode 1 to make some potions, which you then use in episode 4. Once you reach episode 3, you can also start making your own weapons which you can ‘tune’ for use in ANY of episodes 1 to 4, further interlinking the back and forth between the episodes, and allowing you to rapidly gear up in episode 4.”
The developer also makes a plea for fans to “please give it a chance,” stating that “all of our testing has shown that, once you get used to it, unlocking a fresh combat profession once in a while actually becomes quite fun.”
Despite its robust defence, the Brighter Shores dev is also promising a few changes. The first is already active, with player levels now showing both the individual episodic progress as well as a combined total. There’ll also be new challenges arriving in the future which will require progress across multiple episodes to take on, and information in-game will be tweaked to be clearer.
Brighter Shores is out for free in early access now. So if you’d like to make up your own mind on this episodic system, it won’t cost you anything to try it out. You can get up to speed on the game with the latest blog post, over here.
If you’d prefer to give something else a go, our guides to the best fantasy games and the best MMORPGs will help you find your perfect gaming accompaniment.
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