Note: the beta for the Jotunn Edition is now finished, with the full version coming to PC on the 24th July 2019. Consoles will hopefully land the same day, or very soon after.
Original Post
Introducing Bad North: Jotunn Edition, a brand new content expansion, launching this summer - completely free - on all platforms.
The team have been hard at work listening to feedback and crafting exciting new features and content for the game. For those of you that have the game on Steam, we’d like to invite you to check out a public beta for this giant update, starting right now!
We really want your feedback on this preview build, so if you have thoughts on the balance, new features, or find some bugs (oh no!), let us know via the Raw Fury Service Desk (Select Bad North: Jotunn Edition under the game field)
What’s New?
Campaign Changes
We've reworked the campaign progression to show the enemy types on levels, advance the Viking Frontier faster and replaced individual gold with a shared gold pool. This is all comes together to allow you to make much more informed strategic decisions between levels and makes tackling multiple islands per turn a more viable approach.
Lots of changes to the campaign progression!
New Upgrades & Meta Progression
There’s 4 more Items to find and we’re also introducing Commander Traits - smaller, passive buffs for your Commanders - so more than ever you will need to work with what you have and each run will be more unique. Over time you can unlock all these Items and Traits as Starting Upgrades, which you can select for your initial 2 commanders when starting a new game.
Difficulty Enhancements
There are some new options for more casual play, such as Checkpoint Islands which give you a reset point, acting as a safety net for when your campaign reaches a tragic conclusion. You can also opt out of the "Iron Man" behaviour of the game by enabling Replayable Levels on a new campaign (no more save scrubbing needed!). And if more casual is not what you're looking for, we've also added an unlockable Very Hard difficulty for those who want the challenge.
And the Rest…
On top of this we've tweaked up a lot of the basic / core mechanics, tightened up a lot of gameplay, polished the visuals further and added some quality of life features.
Features / Changes Summary
4 new items
Hero Traits
See the enemy types you will face before playing a level
Shared gold
Checkpoints
Replayable Levels
Very Hard difficulty
Choose the look and loadout of your starting commanders
Unlock Items and Traits for your starting commanders
Track your unlocks in the new Codex
Replaced the red shielded vikings with a new enemy type
Units are more effective at retreating from enemies on command
Units (including shielded enemies) can be knocked off of ships
Rebalanced all attacks that launch units
Delete your old Save Games
Commander Stats
Plus: Loads of visual / UI tweaks, small gameplay changes and too many things for us to ever list here!
Pay respects to your fallen commanders, and reminisce on their victories…
Please note that any and all content is subject to change during and after this beta period. Viking safety cannot be guaranteed.
Update 2019-06-18
The beta has been patched with the following changes:
Bugs
Fixed an issue where brute archers would sometimes lose line of sight in the open
Fixed an error in pike charge targeting (would sometimes target up cliffs)
Fixed some errors in the save game management for gamepad
Fixed some clipping issues with tiles and longships
Fixed the issue where foliage would disappear at extreme camera positions
Balance / Polish
Player units cannot get knocked off ships
Plunge attack scales with veteran / elite status (to match pike charge and volley)
Axe Throwers tend to prioritise shields
Longship stun radius slightly reduced
Reworked two-handed viking stats and fixed some bugs in their jumping behaviour
Pikes are less afraid of enemies that are stunned
Traits are more visible on UI banners (loadout and squad select)
Added notifications for lost items / checkpoints
Misc
Very hard is unlocked by default for all Beta players (will be locked in full release)
Added Amber Studios (who did mobile porting and lots of optimisations) to the credits
Updated various UI texts
Various visual tweaks / bug fixes
Various audio hooks added (not final)
Update 2019-06-25
The beta has been patched with the following changes:
Bugs
Units should no longer get stuck while navigating tight turns
Fixed an issue where portraits would go black when commanders die
Possible fix for white roofs on houses on MacOS
Balance / Polish
Late campaign commanders get levelled up
Various visual and audio fixes
Misc
All languages enabled in public beta
To Access The Beta
In your Steam Library, right click on Bad North -> Properties
In the BETAS tab, click in the dropdown and select public_beta
The game will start updating and once it’s done, you will be in the preview of the Jotunn Edition!
Send feedback and bugs to https://rawfury.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/1 (Select Bad North: Jotunn Edition under the game field)
