Hello, everyone! Update 0.4.3.01 is live for The Chaser’s Voyage and it has a few surprise changes to our difficulty modes!
To start off, let’s talk Ace mode. It’s the hardest difficulty mode in our game by default, and is meant for only the most skilled pilots. We didn’t want anyone to be locked out of trying Ace mode though, as it is also the only mode to not have our encounter tiering system, which means in Ace mode, all encounter combinations are available from the beginning of a Voyage. This is one of the 2 big features that makes Ace mode so hard, but it’s also a really unique way to play the game. Thus, we decided to make it so that the player only had to start a game in both Voyager and Captain mode in order to unlock Ace mode. A simple enough task, but one that would guide most new players away from starting on Ace mode.
We were pretty happy with this decision, but over time we’ve realized that it has unintentionally devalued Ace mode. There’s no sense of accomplishment for unlocking it, no sense of progression into the highest tier of play. We realized we needed to make unlocking Ace mode match the intensity of the mode, so we have changed how it is unlocked. In order to unlock Ace mode, the player now has to pay back their debt to Lady Styx on time in Captain mode. If a player has not done that yet, but had already unlocked Ace mode, it will now be locked for them. But if you’ve already paid your debt off on time in Captain mode, then Ace mode will already be unlocked for you. This should make unlocking Ace mode have more meaning and give thrill-seeking pilots another goal to aim for.
However, this still left us with our previous problem, having our “no encounter tiering” mode being locked behind a challenge that not everyone may be able to complete. We want as many of our game experiences to be available to as many players as possible, so we moved a future planned update up to the front of the line: the Voyager+ and Captain+ modes! These modes are almost identical to the existing Voyager and Captain modes, but with one exception: They have no encounter tiering! We had always planned to have these modes available in the final version of game, but their priority was on the lower end compared to things like the Tutorial and Cutscenes. With us increasing the difficulty of unlocking Ace mode though, this was the perfect time to put them in! Now all players, regardless of skill, will be able to experience our game in its most random form in any mode. Additionally we wanted to add a sense of achievement to unlocking them, so Voyager+ is unlocked by surviving a Voyage in Voyager mode, and Captain+ by surviving a Voyage in Captain mode. Since they are unlocked by beating the game, and put the player in the endgame tier of encounters, you can think of these modes as our New Game+!
For the rest of this update we made some small miscellaneous changes. Battleships now deal less damage with their shots in Ace mode. They were just too powerful!! We made it more likely that the player will see Merchant ships and Battleships space jump, since it’s a pretty cool effect. We also updated the visuals for Ion Missiles to further distinguish them from regular Missiles. And finally, throw in some random bug fixes, and that’s everything! We hope you enjoy unlocking and playing our Voyager+, Captain+, and Ace modes!
You can read the full patch notes here and can follow The Chaser’s Voyage and Bright at Midnight on Twitter and join our Discord for more news and to give feedback! If you wish to play The Chaser’s Voyage, you can buy it while we’re in Early Access on Steam: