Wargroove is about to grow larger. Chucklefish has announced its first free DLC add-on has entered the final testing phase, which means it will soon be submitted and released on consoles and computers. This major update will add a cooperative campaign, editor elements, lobbies, Outlaw commanders, and units. It also will offer quite a bit of rebalancing.
Wargroove’s Double Trouble campaign, which can be played alone or with someone else locally or online, will focus on the Outlaw factions. All three of its Commanders have been revealed. There is Vesper, a new character who wields a whip, Wulfar the Outlaw Chief, and the twins, Errol and Orla. While Vesper is still a bit of a mystery, the others were details. Wulfar wields a hammer, which has a Tee Off command that lets him hit allies into a better position or enemies to use them as weapons or defeat them. Errol and Orla function as a single unit and share a Groove Meter, but have two grooves. Errol’s is a Cooling Water ability that heals an area that gradually grows smaller over turns. Orla has a Scorching Fire attack that gradually grows larger for a few turns. The new Thief units can’t attack, but can “Ransack” a town or stronghold to collect gold. Riflemen are new ranged units who have a limited number of shots. These will be joined by new Arcade missions, songs, and Quick Play competitive maps.
The new Wargroove Double Trouble Editor tools were also detailed. Here is the full list of changes that will be coming.
- Unit Modifiers – We’re enabling players to modify the damage that any unit/structure receives as a percentage, including making them invulnerable. We’re also looking into a teleport unit action for the editor.
- Metalocations -We’re adding support for ‘metalocations’ which indicate where things last happened on the map, for example the last attacker, last defender, last recruit, last unit used, last movement path, last death etc. There will also be new actions for locations, such as copying a location area, moving location by (x,y), and boolean operations between locations.
- Gizmos – New place-able entities with an on and off state such as levers and chests. Using gizmos you can override terrain (e.g. draw bridges) and will also be able to enter new actions to set and toggle the gizmo state, as well as new conditions to check it.
- Counters – We’re adding new actions to perform arithmetic between counters as well as setting the counter to random value, and load/storing counter values to some other variables (HP, Groove etc.). There’s also a new condition to compare counters.
- Actions can now play sounds
- Map upload slots will also be increased so players can upload more maps at once.
- Volcano biomes now available in the map builder for all your lava needs.
The following Wargroove balance changes will be a part of Double Trouble.
- Spearmen – Cost increased 150 => 250 gold
- Dogs – Cost decreased 200 => 150 gold
- Amphibians – Damage vs structures reduced, crit damage now 45-55 => 35-45
- Amphibians – Cost increased 250 => 350 gold
- Trebuchets = Cost increased 900 => 1000
- Balloons – Cost decreased 500 => 450
- Balloons – Can now only carry the same units as wagons
- Harpies – Minimum base damage vs structures 45% => 50%
- Koji – Drones now take 50% damage from all units instead of 800% damage
- Sedge – Sadistic rush charge speed, very slow => slow
- Tenri – Tornado charge speed, medium => slow
- “M” (secret Commander) – Groove charge speed, slow => medium
- Ryota – Blade dash charge speed, medium => fast
- Ryota – Blade dash now starts at 50% commander damage
- Ryota – Blade dash now increases in damage by 5% commander damage per “jump” on blade dash route.
- Ryota – Can now dash through neutral structures
- Commander – Minimum base damage vs soldiers 95% => 115%
- Commander – Minimum base damage vs spearmen 65% => 75%
- Critical hits no longer increase RNG damage range. All damage is max +/- 5%, even after crit
- Killing non unit summons (vines, crystals, etc) will no longer build groove
Wargroove developer Chucklefish was in the news earlier this year, following allegations brought to light by Damon Reece. The Necrobarista lead writer noted they were one of about a dozen contributors who were unpaid for work on Starbound and acknowledged Chucklefish required contributors to sign a contract. Christine Crossley, who worked on concept art for Treasure Adventure World, also said she experienced the same thing. In a statement made to PC Gamer, Chucklefish said, “During this time both the core crew and community contributors were collaborating via a chat room and dedicated their time for free. Community contributors were under no obligation to create content, work to deadlines or put in any particular number of hours. Everyone was credited or remunerated as per their agreement.” No action has been taken by the company to resolve these complaints.
Wargroove is available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
