The team at Ion Games has been busy in development of the Web3 space 4x game, Echoes of Empire

The following update article was originally published July 7th in the Echoes of Empire Discord community.

Greetings, Spacefarers!

It’s time for another dev update, and things are not slowing down! Let’s dive right in and take a look at some of what’s happening behind the scenes, and what’s coming up this month.

Community

Our long-awaited art contest is going to be kicking off soon, so be sure to watch for the details on that in a more focused announcement. There will be a submission period of several weeks to allow for plenty of time to create your art pieces. This is a chance to earn an exclusive prize, so be ready to create!

AMA — July 8 @ 5pm PT

We will also be hosting a video AMA with Gala Games this Friday, July 8th, at 8PM Eastern/5 Pacific. Be sure to check out the details in our thread, as leeks are sure to be flying during the event. We’ll be delving into a lot of information we didn’t get to share during Galaverse, and plenty of other details. We hope to see everyone there, but if you can’t make it, there will be video available following the event.

On the development side, there has been a flurry of work around creating and completing flagships and capital ships. The art team is turning out beautiful designs for our flagships, making them into genuine collector’s pieces you’ll be proud to have in your collection. We are incredibly proud of the art team and the work they’ve done on this over the last several months!

In addition to work on ships, the team has been digging in to work on combat. There has been a great deal of design work, as well as refining how we want the combat system to look and function. Combat will be such a critical part of the game, and making the experience fun and rewarding is a major focus for the team. We are working carefully on balance, which will be an ongoing effort through launch and beyond as we see how the combat system plays out in a live environment. We will be keeping a close eye on feedback post-launch to be aware of changes that need to be made, and will be making those changes as we see the need arise. Ideally, we want to release a stable version of combat that will allow us to get play to earn up and running as quickly as we can.

Work around our deeper resource systems has also begun, bringing in further layers of complexity with refinement and crafting. As you work your way through the higher tiers, you will need to be able to refine the basic resources into more rare refined versions. Keeping up your output of these necessities will require time and effort, but will pay off as you advance in the game.

As you can see, we’re keeping very busy here at Ion Games, and we’re very excited to see how well the game is coming together. We’re so grateful for the community’s enthusiasm and support, you guys rock! Stay awesome, and we’ll see you next month for another update!