Pred Report VII

Join us as we talk about Ranked Mode (among other things)!

2024年7月4日

Greetings Champions!

It’s been a little while since we last sat down for a Pred Report, so join us today in discussing all sorts of hot topics from Ranked Mode to Roadmaps.

Let’s dig in!

Predecessor will be at Gamescom!

Summer is here meaning that one of the biggest games industry events of the year, Gamescom, is also almost here!

Gamescom is the destination for games studios and publishers to showcase themselves, and we’re pleased to share that Predecessor will be one of those games shown off during the event!

We won’t unfortunately have a booth that you can freely visit, but a number of the team will be out and about mingling with investors, press and partners. If you see someone wearing a Predecessor t-shirt be sure to come and say hi!

For anyone unable to fly out to Germany for this event have no fear - you’ll be able to catch up on all the highlights at home! Keep an eye out for some exciting Predecessor reveals during Opening Night Live, streaming globally on August 20th.

We’re halfway through 2024. What’s next?

We’re 6 months into 2024 and a lot has happened in that time. We’ve added two new game modes and six new Heroes. We overhauled nearly every stat in the game when we added a 6th new item slot. We launched on Xbox, transitioned to Open Beta, and began rolling localisation making Predecessor more accessible than ever before.

But there’s still so much of the year still on the horizon and we believe that the best is yet to come for Predecessor.

We’re working on a brand new roadmap that covers the second half of the year, which we look forward to sharing with you all shortly after the next major content update (sometime in August).

Until then however we can exclusively reveal that the long-awaited Undertow Skins are nearly here, set to release next month alongside one of the final remaining legacy Heroes that many of you have been asking for. Keep an eye on our socials for the latest!

Summer Sales

There’s still time to grab a bargain! The Steam Summer Sale continues, with Predecessor game bundles being up to half price on Steam with similar discounts on skins in game too!

It’s the perfect time to top up your platinum reserves and grab any missing skins from your collection!

V19.1 Balance Patch

With work continuing on a number of important Predecessor milestones, we’ve made the decision to move up the V0.19.1 balance update!

Instead of releasing in 3 weeks, we’ll be pushing it live at some point next week, to ensure that our game balance is as tight as it can be for the coming month.

Expect the V0.19.1 Patch Notes shortly before the update drops, including all the balance changes we’ll be releasing before the next major content drop next month.

Thank you for understanding!

Ranked Mode

Ranked Mode has been out now for around 4 weeks now, but in a very limited form.

As you know, we've tackled this game mode with care and deliberate intent. We started with the game mode being open for just 8 hours a week and on just 2 regional servers, which was understandably met with frustration by players eager to jump full-time into a life of Ranked play.

Today we're going to talk through a few of the major questions we've seen from players, explaining our reasoning for some of the decisions we’ve taken so far.

Why no NA West servers?

This is perhaps the simplest question to answer. There's simply significantly more Predecessor players living closer to our servers in NA East (NAE) as opposed to NA West (NAW) - almost 3x as many in fact!

As such running Ranked Mode on NAE benefits more players in the Americas.

Why such a limited time?

We knew that launching Ranked Mode with just 8 hours of availability was always going to be an unpopular move. That said however it was important that we were conservative with our approach to expanding availability of the new mode.

We understand the frustrations with such a highly anticipated game mode being rolled out so slowly, but our abundance of caution comes solely from our dedication to Predecessor, and making the right decisions for the long term health of the game.

What does the data say?

If you've hung out in Discord much or followed some of our team on Twitter, you'll know that we're taking a data-first approach to rolling out Ranked Mode.

What this means is that we’re carefully monitoring multiple data points to ensure that our rollout is as successful as possible, including matchmaking times, match fairness, and others.

An Update on PlayStation 4

Unfortunately though we’ve also got to share some difficult news.

We’re sunsetting the PlayStation 4 version of the game.

This decision hasn’t been made lightly, but unfortunately Predecessor’s performance on hardware released over a decade ago simply cannot keep up with modern expectations and the power afforded by the current generation consoles and PCs.

We will be removing the PlayStation 4 version of the game from the PlayStation Store on July 11th. Anyone who has already downloaded the game before this time will be able to continue playing until we officially close support for the game on PlayStation 4 in January, 2025.

Community Roundup

Dastard Drongo

MADDKATT is back at it again creating epic new stickers for the Predecessor community. His latest shows a vulnerable Drongo, and we LOVE it.

Dragon’s Fortune Howitzer Skin Concept

Recently he shared his concept are for an oriental inspired Howitzer skin, sporting ornate dragon fireworks cannons and a gorgeous red and gold temple design. Stunning!

Grim.exe Abaddon Skin Concept

We see Grim.exe as a bit of a goofy Hero at times, but Peach has shared her vision for a far more sinister rendition, featuring our lovable robot.

That’s it for this time folks!
Thanks for reading and have a lovely rest of your day!
- Kari, Lead Community Manager