Space roguelike Breachway has some big changes on the way, as developer Edgeflow Studio works on enhancing replayability. Bringing together the ship building I love from No Man’s Sky, the deckbuilding of Slay the Spire, and the tactical combat of FTL, Breachway is already a lot of fun, but the team has received frequent feedback asking for greater variety between attempts. What started out as a planned update to the overarching progression has turned into a “pretty hefty rework,” Edgeflow explains, and the focus is on redesigning several systems to reduce the similarity of runs.
This next Breachway update begins from the very start of the run. You’ll actually now set out with slightly weaker equipment than before, but will have “a lot more opportunities to swap that equipment out for more powerful options as the run progresses.” That means you’ll be more encouraged to switch your build and experiment, which tends to lead to those truly memorable moments in the best roguelikes.
Once you’re underway, you’ll notice that enemies can now drop equipment as loot, with drops based on the faction they belong to. That means if you have specific equipment types in mind, you can adapt your plans to match – seek out Starkin forces, and you can expect additional laser weapons, while the Solarii ships are the place to look for flak options.
Equipment quality has been reworked. Rather than the tier of equipment defining its slots, you’ll now find a wider range across the potential set. All equipment regardless of its tier can have between two and eight card slots, and between zero and three subsystem slots. You’ll also note a total of six quality levels, which can be seen via a colored bar on the right-hand side of the equipment’s tab.
In order to further differentiate the three tiers, card upgrades have been introduced. Mk.I gear typically has the weakest cards but has a rare chance to drop upgraded cards when you’re offered a draft. As you climb the ranks, those upgraded versions will become the standard picks, creating a clear power progression with each tier.
This means, for example, that you might find an early-game Mk.II weapon that enables powerful cards but with just two card slots, making it a handy power spike, but one you’ll likely look to swap out later on. In order to eliminate any potential guesswork and help you sift through all these new drops, you can now preview all the draftable cards for a piece of equipment. Rounding out the update is some polish for the ship status and station and store menus to make them a little cleaner.
So when will this new update arrive? Edgeflow says it’s testing the changes internally and making refinements this week, after which it will go out to beta testers, and then a public testing branch. Expect to wait a little longer before it arrives in the full game, then, but you can keep your eyes on the game’s Steam store page for a notification when it becomes available for public testing.
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