Rune II Spring 2020 Roadmap

Following some asset-related disagreements, it seems like the ongoing development of Rune II, formerly known as Rune: Ragnarok, is back on track. This official post on the game’s forums shares a roadmap for the next few months, during which the game should receive some combat improvements, a rework of its Ages of Ragnarok, a UI overhaul, some bug fixing, and more. Check it out:

Hi everyone! I’m very pleased today to share with y’all something that has been asked about for a while: The RUNE II Roadmap. This roadmap will be updated monthly as our development team continues working on RUNE II. Here are the things that we are going to be working on over the next few months:

Combat

We feel that combat in RUNE II needs a lot of improvement. We’re in the process of redesigning combat flow and touching a lot of the core systems. For example, some of the changes we’re looking at are making blocks timed instead of currently being held indefinitely, expanding “pain delays” so you can’t spam your weapon while getting hit, and removing stamina drain from light attacks. Currently we are in the initial implementation and balance stages of this. Look for more information about Combat 2.0 coming soon.

Ages of Ragnarok

In Quality of Life patch 1 that we put out on January 30th, we made the Age of Night significantly darker. Our plan is to turn the current Ages of Ragnarok up to 11 by making them more distinct with a ton of visual polish. Additionally, we’re going to be tuning and balancing the design of each Age to make it feel as unique of an experience as possible. For instance, what if the world map changed and some areas that were inaccessible in a previous age were now able to be explored? Plus, an oft-referenced Age may see its return…

Core Loop improvement

We’ve heard your feedback that the core loop of getting artifacts to fight Loki is too monotonous and repetitive. We are talking a lot internally about ways to break that up. What if the Ragnarok Timer didn’t start until you completed a number of actions in an age? What if there was no timer at all? What if the artifacts gave you bonuses within Midgard based on how and when they were collected? Within this core loop, we’re additionally looking at ways to make the world feel more alive.

User Interface and User Experience (UI/UX)

There are so many improvements we want to make to the user interface and user experience of RUNE II. In no particular order, here are some of the things that we’re looking at: Visual loot differentiation. Inventory management. Search bar for recipes. Auto-grouping items and recipes. Auto-sorting items. Gear comparison. Character UI and paper dolls. Quick move, quick drop, quick dismantle, stack cooking. Compass improvements, co-op map waypoints. Better stats. Path focusing. Accessibility options.

Bug Fixing, Optimization, Quality of Life Updates

We’re constantly working on fixing bugs and optimizing RUNE II. We want as many people as possible to be able to run RUNE II on PC and not have to worry as much about system specs. This will be an always-ongoing effort. Similarly, Quality of Life updates are always at the forefront of our minds. When you interact with these systems on a minute-by-minute basis, all the little tweaks and improvements add up to make the experience that much better.

And more!

This is just the tip of the iceberg for how we want to update RUNE II. From making the loot that you get more meaningful to reworking character progression and animations, our small but mighty team is excited to get to work on making RUNE II the best game it can be. Additionally, we are looking into the best ways to improve upon RUNE II’s PvP mode, like adding new PvP maps and more game modes like Arena and Headball. We are also looking at the best ways to integrate mod tools and mapping support into RUNE II. When we have an update on these topics, we’ll share more information.