New World Dives Into The Design And Creation Of The Fire Storm Heartrune
Amazon Game Studios will be turning up the heat in New World with the arrival of the Fellowship & Fire update later this month. One of the key features of the update is the addition of the Fire Storm Heartrune and is the center point of the studio’s latest dev blog.
As the new Heartrune’s name suggests, it will give players the ability to send a flaming tornado hurtling towards their enemies, providing a new mid-range attack option that they can use to engage enemies or deal damage to those running away.
“The base movement speed of the Fire Storm is just barely faster than the normal sprint so players can actually follow the Heartrune and move within it, especially when using the Cunning variant with the Accelerating Storm perk,” Combat Designer Josh Hurley explained. “I always thought it would be cool to treat the Fire Storm as a ball of death for players to follow as they charge into a fight.”
“During a War playtest, I saw a Fire Storm immediately cast through broken fort gates,” he continued. “Right as they were destroyed a group of players rushed into the fort while inside the Fire Storm, creating the very fiery ball of death full of players that I envisioned during the early design phases.”
Hurley also revealed that the inspiration for the Fire Storm Heartrune came from Fellowship & Fire’s new Empyrean Forge Expedition, and that unlike most projectiles, the conjured fire tornado was designed to follow the terrain and not just disappear when it hit an obstacle.
“Getting the ability to allow a projectile to maintain a set distance from the ground was an absolute game changer for the development,” he said.
The Fire Storm Heartrune, along with the rest of Fellowship & Fire, are currently up for testing on the public test realm and is set to arrive on March 28th, marking the start of the open-world MMORPG’s first-ever seasonal narrative. In the meantime, you can check out the full dev blog to learn more about the new Heartrune’s design and development process.
We joined Combat Designer Josh Hurley for a glimpse into Fire Storm’s inspiration, design, goals, and challenges.
Discover the story behind this ability’s development to make the most of its power.
Read up here!
🔥 https://t.co/qmMReIXXzL pic.twitter.com/qjdkjmtern— New World (@playnewworld) March 10, 2023
