Greetings, Wastelanders!
It's been an intense month of development as we've been working on expanding Afterglow's combat depth and refining core progression systems. Here's what we've accomplished and where we're headed.
New weapons
T1 weapons have arrived! We've implemented a comprehensive weapon system featuring:
- 11 distinct weapon categories: unarmed combat, sharp melee, blunt melee, semi-automatic guns, shotguns, bolt-action rifles, semi-automatic rifles, assault rifles, sniper rifles, machine guns and launchers
- No best weapon: every weapon type has its niche and there's no single "best" weapon for all situations.
- Complete crafting chains: all blueprints and crafting recipes for new weapons are now in place
Our design philosophy focuses on creating meaningful choices rather than a linear power progression. We explored this approach in detail in our previous post about the combat system design.
Combat system changes
We are continuing to expand the combat system and add new features to make it more deep and challenging:
Status effects:
- Negative effects like stun, bleed, and fear that can be applied to the enemy
- Positive buffs including damage increases and improved hit chance
- Not all weapons can apply all status effects
Environment modifiers:
- Terrain now affects both global map movement speed and combat hit chance
- Some character skills may negate negative effects of the terrain
Revamped skills system
We've redesigned character skills progression. Each activity now has two interconnected skill types:
- Mastery skills: Gained from every successful action (killing enemies with a weapon type, gathering resources). Each level provides steady, incremental improvements (such as increased gathering speed, better hit chance, etc.)
- Specialization skills: Have a 10% chance to gain XP when earning Mastery XP. These provide significant, unique perks tailored to each weapon/profession (such as revealing mining nodes on your map, adding a chance to apply bleed effects on critical hits with your shotgun, etc.)
Other notable improvements
- Map layers: like Google Maps, you can now toggle information overlays: zone safety indicators (unlocked through specialization skills) + more to be added later
- Item dismantling: salvage-skilled characters can break down items for resources
- Enhanced UI: new animations for combat initiation and skill level-ups, animated combat environments for desert locations, number of other UI improvements
- Character info: redesigned character UI on map screen
- Performance: significant optimizations across the board
Looking ahead
In the upcoming months we will be focusing on refinement of the existing systems and features: both in terms of gameplay and visual appearance. That will include more balancing, optimisation of progression flow, streamlining onboarding and improving user interface and graphics.
We are also made a decision to spend more time on the game, so we are moving forward our release date to Q2 2026. This additional time ensures we can deliver the polished, engaging experience Afterglow deserves.
The September build represents a major step forward in combat depth and character progression. You can find information how to access the latest build on our Discord.