Dungeon Defenders: Awakened 1.0 Steam Release

Chromatic Games  May 28th, 2020

DEFENDERS

Finally, Dungeon Defenders: Awakened 1.0 released on Steam today. It’s been a long and crazy journey that has ultimately led us here. Development on this project has had its ups and downs, but together we made it here, our studio and you, our GLORIOUS community. There’s a lot to cover, we’ll save the sappy stuff for later, let’s get into it!

What’s Inside?

There’s a lot to cover the epicness that is Dungeon Defenders: Awakened, with where and what to cover being quite difficult decisions. We’ll go through everything top to bottom, and if something is left out, then you’ll just have to hop in and experience it for yourself!

Heroes

The four classic heroes lead the charge for the Dungeon Defenders: Awakened roster. With more to come, these base four serve as the bastion of Etheria!

The Squire

Melee tank with towers that either block or deal heavy physical damage.

• Abilities
  • Left Click:  Melee slash
  • Circular Slice:  A circular slice that deals a ton of aoe damage.
  • Blood Boil:  Go berserk, increasing damage, knockback, movement speed, and armor.
  • Heal:  Heals you by converting mana into health.
• Defenses
  • Spiked Blockade – A blockade that stops enemies and deals damage to melee attackers.
  • Ballista – Shoots a giant bolts that pierces through enemies.
  • Bouncer Blockade – A blockade that stops enemies and knocks back melee attackers.
  • Bowling Ball Tower – Shoots out bowling balls that bounce and deal damage to enemies.
  • Training Dummy – A blockade that spins and deals more and more damage to enemies around it.

The Huntress

Ranged DPS focused on laying traps and dealing heavy damage from afar.

• Abilities
  • Left Click:  Shoots projectiles
  • Right Click:   Reloads weapon
  • Piercing Shot:  Shoots a phoenix that pierces enemies.
  • Adrena Rush:  Increases attack rate, move speed, and jump height.
  • Heal:   Heals you by converting mana into health.
• Defenses
  • Explosive Trap – Explodes dealing physical damage to nearby enemies.
  • Poison Gas Trap – Stuns weaker enemies.
  • Inferno Trap – Engulfs enemies in fire damage over time.
  • Darkness Trap – Blinds enemies and removes their elemental immunities.
  • Thunder Spike Trap – Deals a giant burst of lightning damage.

The Apprentice

Ranged DPS with well rounded defenses and burst hero damage.

• Abilities
  • Left Click:  Shoots projectiles
  • Right Click:   Hold and release a giant explosion nearby
  • Mana Bomb:  After channeling, releases a giant mana bomb.
  • Overcharge:  Overcharges you, making your right click empower nearby defenses.
  • Heal:   Heals you by converting mana into health.
• Defenses
  • Magic Missile Tower – Shoots missiles that deal physical damage.
  • Elemental Barrier – Blockade that strips enemy elemental immunity.
  • Flameburst Tower – Shoots an exploding fireball.
  • Lightning Tower – Shocks nearby enemies with chain lightning.
  • Deadly Striker Tower – Shoots a single blast of energy dealing a ton of damage.

The Monk

Melee and Ranged hero with auras and abilities that aim at support.

• Abilities
  • Left Click:  Melee slash
  • Right Click:   Shoots projectiles.
  • Tower Boost:  Throws a medallion on the ground, boosting nearby defenses.
  • Hero Boost:  Boosts heroes near the Monk, and the Monk as well.
  • Heal:   Heals you by converting mana into health.
• Defenses
  • Ensnare Aura – Slows enemy movement and attack speed.
  • Electric Aura – Deals lightning damage to enemies.
  • Healing Aura – Heals heroes who walk through it.
  • Strength Drain Aura – Reduces enemy damage and strips elemental immunity.
  •  Enrage Aura – Chance to cause enemies to fight one another.

Difficulties

Dungeon Defenders is about climbing the mountain and taking on harder and harder difficulties across all game modes. Returning to our roots we’re bringing back some classics, some in a slightly new way, and something brand new:

• Easy:  Getting through the story and obliterating everything in your path.
• Medium:  Smooth progression, providing a decent challenge to any new Defender.
• Hard:  The heat starts to increase, this is the most difficult start possible.
• Insane:  Clearing Hard makes way for Insane.
• Nightmare:  Access granted after attaining Level 70 and clearing Insane Campaign. It introduces four enemies – Spiders, Sharkens, Djinns, and Goblincopters.
• Massacre:  The newest difficulty in Dungeon Defenders: Awakened requires you to reach Level 83 to access it. You’re going to need some great gear from Nightmare and prepare to take on the newest enemy – The Siren!

You can choose to take the solo route or play with up to three other Defenders. The difficulty is there, and the choice is yours!

Maps

In this first showing of Dungeon Defenders: Awakened, you have access to 15 epic maps, some classic blasts from the past, and some brand new maps that help show off the world of Etheria.

• Act I
  • Deeper Well
  • Ancient Mines
  • Lava Mines
  • Alchemical Labs (Boss Map)
  • Magus Quarters (Encore Map)
• Act II
  • Tornado Valley
  • Tornado Highlands
  • Ramparts
  • Throne Room (Boss Map)
  • Endless Spires (Encore Map)
• Act III
  • Arcane Library
  • Royal Gardens
  • Promenade
  • The Summit (Boss Map)
  • Glitterhelm (Encore Map)

These maps offer diverse landscapes and unique ways to strategize your defenses against the hordes of enemies that await!

Game Modes

A return to our roots would not be right without bringing back some of the games modes that many know and love. All difficulties are available on every game mode, allowing novices and veterans alike an opportunity to try their hand.

• Survival:  Up to 25 Waves of enemies are coming for you. Reaching Wave 15 and 25 offer unique rewards that vary between every map. 
• Pure Strategy:  Test your defensive prowess in this mode. Your towers are the only thing that can defeat the enemies that await you.
• Mixed Mode:  Add in some Nightmare enemies into the mix, increasing the difficulty and rewards.
• Hardcore:  With greater risk comes greater reward. If you die with this enabled, you do not respawn until the end of combat phase, whether you win or lose.

Enemies

It wouldn’t be fun if it was all just goblins coming your way. The Old Ones army returns in full fashion, while also recruiting a new evil to push your Defender skill further than ever!

• Goblins:  Big ears, goofy, melee focused, and the weakest enemy of the bunch. If you can’t beat them, you’re in for trouble.
• Dark Elf Archer:  A ranged Elf that shoots arrows to destroy you and your towers from afar.
• Dark Elf Mage:  This ranged Elf shoots magical bolts at your towers while also summoning skeletons to fight you.
• Orc:  A big brutish melee enemy that hits pretty hard and has a larger health pool.
• Wyvern:  Drakes that come in from the sky, flying over your defenses to destroy your Crystal Core.
• Kobolds:  They’re packed with dynamite and a bit fuse-happy. They’ll charge any threat and go BOOM!
• Dark Elf Warrior:  These elves thirst for battle against Heroes. They jump maneuver around and over defenses to focus down Heroes before turning their focus to your defenses.
• Ogre:  Think an orc on steroids, except he also throws explosive snot at you. His melee hurts pack quite the punch.
• Spiders:  These bugs come down randomly from the ceiling, usually behind your towers. They can debuff heroes and towers alike.
• Sharken:  Hailing from the seas, they pack a mighty melee punch and also charge your towers, knocking them aside.
• Djinn:  Using otherworldly magic, the Djinn can either poof your Defenses out of existence or greatly enhance one of his allies.
• Goblincopter:  A flying mechanical  tormentor that shoots flares to distract towers, crash lands into players, oh and it carries a freaking OGRE with it into battle.
• *NEW* The Siren:  She enchants enemies around her, making them take permanent unstrippable reduced elemental damage based on her elemental affinity. She also flees, and Defenders who defeat her before she escapes are handsomely rewarded.

As you progress you run into newer enemies, providing a greater challenge as you progress. If you can make it to Massacre, you can find out what horrors all of these enemies pack!

Gear

This is what it’s all about, getting sweet epic loot after a good day of defending. The theme of DD:A is something new and something old, something blue and something bold (is that how the saying goes?). Every weapon, pet, armor, and accessory have been carefully crafted to look as legendary as possible. The pieces you’ll see are:

• Weapons:  Unique to each hero, providing stats and fun ways to shoot and slash enemies!
• Helmets:  Providing stats and protecting that Defender strategy powerhouse brain of yours.
• Chests:  Providing stats and keeping your heart safe.
• Gloves:  Providing stats and helping prevent blisters.
• Boots:  Providing stats and giving a nice cushion for your journey.
• Brooches:  Providing stats and a visual pin in your cap.
• Masks: Providing stats and a visual protector for your Hero’s face.
• Braces: Providing stats and a visual wristguard to fend off carpal tunnel.
• Shields (Squire only):  Providing stats and a sweet shield. Enough said.
• Pets:  Providing stats, sometimes unique mechanics, sometimes unique attacks, sometimes even MORE stats.

You can combine Helmets, Chests, Gloves, and Boots of the same armor type (i.e. The Miner Set) to greatly increase the stats on each piece of gear.

UI

Probably the part of the Dungeon Defenders series that needed the most love has been our UIs. Well Dungeon Defenders: Awakened comes in hot with some fresh off the press UIs that help get you through your inventory and customize your heroes efficiently and effectively so that you can get back to defending those dungeons. Let’s take a look

Inventory

Hero Deck Selection

Hero Customization

Map Select

Play vs. Legacy

These are two ways to play Dungeon Defenders: Awakened that allow us to do some cool stuff in the future, with the first example coming with release. If you choose Play, your characters will not see people who choose Legacy, and vice versa. You are free to create new characters on either version. In order to provide Mod Support down the road, we need to create two modes to accommodate this.

Play

This is the preferred way to experience Dungeon Defenders: Awakened. With this 1.0 Launch, everyone starts off fresh on an even playing ground. If you want to start up fresh with friends, current and yet to be made, go here!

Legacy

This is where older profiles and experiences go. For the Dungeon Defenders: Awakened 1.0, this is where Early Access profiles go. You can continue off where you were in EA with all the gear and levels you previously had. This area is where we will be supporting mods in the future.

Pricepoint

One of the biggest points of feedback that we’ve received from many of you is that our price point was a little high. We scrubbed through Discord, our forums, Twitter posts, Facebook posts, and Steam Reviews. Everything. This was such a huge bit of feedback, and we listened, so on launch Dungeon Defenders: Awakened base price $29.99, and to follow the traditional Steam game release, we’re going to have the game 15% off for the first 7 days.

Additional Options

We know that a lot of people experience Dungeon Defenders in their own way, and have unique preferences. As a result, we added some options for you to utilize to get you the information you want.

Show Split Item Power
Off by default, enabling this option splits your Item Power into two stats, Hero Item Power and Tower Item Power. This can help be a quick filter to see if a piece of loot is more heavily favored towards Hero stats or Tower stats.

In World Tooltips
On by default, this shows an items stat when on the ground. It can be disabled for players who prefer to inspect all their loot in the inventory.

Compare Items In World
On by default, this compares what you’re currently wearing to a piece of gear that is on the ground.

In World Tooltips During Combat
On by default, this lets you inspect gear as your in combat phase. Players can turn this off so as they run by all the sweet loot on the ground that they are not met with a item tooltip as they traverse the terrain to defeat incoming foes.

What’s Next?

We’re going to be working hard to make sure any issues that may arise are taken care of, or finish polishing some features that didn’t make it into this 1.0 launch. These will be coming in small patches, and we’ll make sure that hotfixes are a-flowing so that all Defenders have the smoothest experience possible.

Alongside these smaller patches, we’ll be having a big Post 1.0 Update that’ll include:

• Massacre Survival
• RIFT ENEMIES
• Tornado Valley Challenge Map
• Promenade Challenge Map
• Secret gear hunt
• New Gear Sets
• Legend’s Tablet
• Preorder Costumes
• Credits
• And More!

We plan on keeping Dungeon Defenders: Awakened alive and healthy for a long time to come. There’s so much to look forward to, and we can’t wait to share it with you!

Special Thanks

While we have specifics in our credits, there are a ton of individuals outside of Chromatic Games that helped make this game what it is. To all of our Developers of present and past, Remote QA Team, Cavalry Testers, Early Adopters, Kickstarter Backers, and all Defenders, we thank you for your trust and patience as you ride along with us on this journey. Together, we are Dungeon Defenders! <3

Known Issues

Below are the known issues, and we’ll be updating this over time. If you run into any bugs, please report them through the in-game escape menu link.

• Full localization support should be available in the coming weeks. 
  • Use at your own risk! It’s not super risky, there’s just a few tweaks we need to make. More polish coming.
• Can’t skip the intro cinematic as soon as most would like.
• Several UI’s might still suffer from ‘Art Shock’ – We’re on it!
• Gamepad needs a little more polishing.
• Steam Avatars may not display properly
• There’s an “Always Compare Item In Inventory” option that cannot be scrolled to. We’re increasing the scrollabilities.
• Accessory Tooltip stats are not in the correct order visually.
• Steam Achievements may not unlock properly for some Defenders.
• Will update overtime 🙂

Social Defenders

To get reliable updates on the future of DDA make sure to follow us on all our social media platforms:

• Discord
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitch
• Forums

Keep an eye out for more info!
For Etheria!
Chromatic Games