Blizzard president Mike Ybarra stated, “We are putting players at the forefront of everything we do, and we are working hard to both meet and exceed their expectations. A big part of caring for our teams is making sure we have the resources to produce experiences our communities will love while giving our teams space to explore even more creative opportunities within their projects.

“Proletariat is a perfect fit for supporting Blizzard’s mission in bringing high-quality content to our players more often.” The terms for the acquisition were not revealed. Also, it remains to be seen how the studio will contribute to the upcoming expansion, especially since it’s out later this year for PC.

Proletariat joining Blizzard is interesting because the latter is also in the process of being acquired. Microsoft announced the acquisition of Activision Blizzard earlier this year for $68.7 billion. The deal is expected to close in the fiscal year 2023 with Microsoft president Brad Smith revealing last month that the deal was “moving fast.” There’s still a ways to go especially with the approval of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and regulatory bodies in the EU pending.

Proletariat’s magic-infused Spellbreak was one of the more unique battle royale games out there, but it won’t be sticking around for much longer. Though it certainly attracted a sizeable player base in its time, it seems it isn’t doing well enough to continue onward, and the developer has announced that its servers will be shutting down in early 2023. No reason for the closure has been given, but it doesn’t take much to put two and two together in a situation such as this one.

“After more than four years of elemental magic and spell combinations, we’ve made the decision to end development of Spellbreak. The servers will be shut down as of early 2023. Thank you to the millions of players who have joined us in the Hollow Lands since 2018; it’s been an amazing journey.

“Our vision was to create a fresh, multiplayer action-spellcasting game with exceptional movement and class customization that would give players the chance to unleash their inner battlemage. We are grateful to everyone in the game’s community for exploring the magical worlds and experiences we created together. Spellbreak was an ambitious project that saw our team push new boundaries in design and development and we are excited to continue to innovate as we create new titles in the future.”

Until then, Spellbreak is available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Magical battle royale title Spellbreak has achieved another milestone since launching on September 3rd. It now has five million players, as revealed by the developer on Twitter, and racked up four million hours watched on Twitch. Furthermore, players have inflicted 25 billion spell damage in matches thus far with the most players being in the United States followed by Japan and Brazil.

It’s pretty impressive, not only because the title hit two million players a few days after launch but it’s managed to do so in the fairly crowded battle royale genre. Spellbreak distinguishes itself pretty well though, offering players different elemental spells that they can mix and match together. The result is more akin to an action RPG but with other players to fight.

Spellbreak is free to play and currently available for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PS4 and PC. It also supports cross-play, allowing players across different platforms to face each other. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months especially when it comes to future updates.

https://twitter.com/PlaySpellbreak/status/1308768217784037378

Proletariat’s fantasy battle royale shooter Spellbreak saw its full release earlier this month after spending a while in its beta period, and its magically-infused action and role playing elements have caught the fancy of quite a few people, with the game enjoying quite a bit of success immediately upon launch. Taking to Twitter via the game’s official page, developers Proletariat recently shared some stats to that effect.

Within 5 days of launch, Spellbreak has had over 2 million players in total. Meanwhile, it’s been watched for over 1.7 million hours on Twitch in total, while Battlemages around the world have cumulatively cast enough spells to deal over 7 billion damage to each other.

Spellbreak is available for free on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. On PC, it is available exclusively via the Epic Games Store. You can get more details on the game through our recent interview with the developers through here.

https://twitter.com/PlaySpellbreak/status/1303423090081370113

Proletariat’s magically infused free to play battle royale game, Spellbreak, has been in beta on PC and PS4 for a while, while the developers recently also confirmed that it would also be coming to Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Now we know exactly when the game will be releasing.

At Gamescom Opening Night Live, the developers confirmed with a new trailer that Spellbreak will be releasing on all platforms in full on September 3. With its unique take on the battle royale genre and its blend of action and RPG mechanics, it looks like an interesting prospect, and the fact that it’s free to play should surely draw in plenty of people. You can check out its launch trailer below to get a look at what it’s all about.

You can learn more about Spellbreak, its mechanics, its progression, and more through our interview with executive producer Cardell Kerr from earlier this year. Check it out through here.

https://youtu.be/pSmvbSFUDf8

In a genre as crowded, wildly popular, and competitive as battle royales, we don’t often see developers taking risks and trying new and different things, but Proletariat seem to be doing just that with Spellbreak. Though it is, on surface, a battle royale game, its magic-infused action and its unique RPG-style mid-match progression mechanics throw in interesting new wrinkles.

During its beta period, the game has seen positive reception from players, but with PC and PS4 being the only platforms it was confirmed for, there have been quite a few questions about whether Spellbreak will come to other platforms as well. Well, we now have an answer. A gameplay trailer of the title was shown off recently at IGN Expo, which confirmed at the end that the game will indeed be coming to Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Check out the trailer below.

Spellbreak is currently in beta on PC and PS4. You can get more details on the game in our recent interview with the developers through here.

"One of the main things we believe in at Proletariat is to make games we don’t see being made. We were all impacted by the growth of Battle Royale games, but we felt there was an opportunity to make something different."

How did the idea of making a medieval fantasy themed battle royale title come about?

One of the main things we believe in at Proletariat is to make games we don’t see being made. We were all impacted by the growth of Battle Royale games, but we felt there was an opportunity to make something different. What stood out to us was that most of the other titles focused on gun-based gameplay and we really wanted to do something that was more fantasy based. Ironically, when we started working on Spellbreak, it was more swords than sorcery – over time, we found that the concept of sorcery and allowing players to become the ultimate battle mage was where our depth really was!

Spellbreak’s central premise obviously separates it from other games in the battle royal genre, but can you tell us about some of the ways it does so from a mechanical perspective?

From a raw game mechanic point of view, Spellbreak harkens back to Unreal Tournament. Our projectiles mostly have travel time and physics, allowing for a very different set of skills from more instant fire styles of games. Additionally, movement fully takes advantage of the three-dimensional space where players can fly, glide, dash or teleport to fully traverse the map. All of that combines to make mechanical skill in Spellbreak fundamentally different than most other games

What can you tell us about the gauntlets system and how that affects the core combat in Spellbreak?

We have six unique gauntlets within Spellbreak and each determine what sort of elemental magic you can use in combat. Each gauntlet is attuned to one element and has one sorcery effect that allows for zone control, defense, or even movement if you’re the right class. Since your character actually equips two gauntlets (one on each hand), this allows players to have more freedom in how they want to approach combat. In addition, we have a powerful spell combination system that allows the elements to interact with each other. A great example we love seeing from our players include throwing down a blizzard (an area of effect ability which creates a swirling ice storm) to counter incoming fire or toxic spells which allows them to aim their ice lance with a little (admittedly frosty) breathing room. It’s these types of unique moment to moment elements that our gauntlet system allows.

Spellbreak’s mid-match progression of unlocking new abilities and skills and levelling up is one of its most interesting features, because it’s not something that one often sees in a battle royale title. How did that concept come about during development?

We feel that one of the most important design aspects within Battle Royales is that the game feels like you can always win, so long as you’re alive. One of the important aspects of Spellbreak is to deliver on the full spectrum battle mage experience. We want the player to feel like they are a magical superhero, and that’s where the concept of class levels really coalesced. As time passes in the game, you will get stronger just as a part of playing. Towards the end, your full potential has been unlocked, and the battles become even more over the top.

"We are especially excited for all of the performance related improvements. By doing them, we have been able to add more personality to the world and make each region feel like its own fantasy environment."

Given that Spellbreak’s matches typically last around 15-20 minutes, how did you go about balancing those progression mechanics to ensure that they feel meaningful even over shorter periods of time?

One of the most useful tactics of making memorable progression is to make them non-linear. The fact that each level is a major bump that comes with an unlocked ability allows for clear moments of meaningful progression that wouldn’t feel as momentous if abilities were just scaled up over time. Combining the leveling system with the gathering of loot (of different rarities) allows for clear goals that reward skill and longevity, alongside the more luck-based progression that accompanies looting. The mixture is far stronger than the sum of the parts.

What are the most important and biggest improvements you’ve made to Spellbreak during its alpha and beta periods?

We are especially excited for all of the performance related improvements. By doing them, we have been able to add more personality to the world and make each region feel like its own fantasy environment. We’ve also continued to work on class balance by combining gameplay data and listening to our passionate fans.

Are there any similar improvements that you’re currently working on directly as a result of feedback from the community?

We are always looking at feedback from our community!  We have over 270K players in our Discord server and their feedback drove a lot of rune changes and even the addition of the scroll system we did in the past. Lately we have spent a lot more time just trying to find better ways to teach the game to new and even established players, as that’s been a resonant theme within the community at large. That effort resulted in our new Tutorial experience which launched with the 2.1 update. There is a lot going on in Spellbreak, and even experienced players likely have things to learn.

What can you tell us about additional modes or features you have in store for Spellbreak?

We can’t really spoil anything specific, but it’s important to call attention to the fact that Proletariat is no stranger to games as a service, and ongoing content. Most of us have been making games for over a decade, and most of that was ongoing content support. Fans can expect some significant game updates, some map changes that go along with a strong narrative that you would expect from any RPG game as well as some surprises that we can’t wait to share with our community. We can’t wait to introduce folks to our greater world!

Given its very nature, Spellbreak seems like a game that you can keep alive and active for a long time to come. With that in mind, what are your larger goals for the game’s post-launch support? Your mission statement, so to speak?

We want Spellbreak to be an experience that always leaves players with a feeling of ‘I can’t believe that just happened!’ All the updates we add are really just trying to ensure we can keep that experience alive and well for all players, new and old. We also have a reach world lore that we are excited to explore with future updates and we are excited for all of our fans to learn more about the Hollow Lands.

"We have no updates ready to share at this time, but it’s our dream to allow for friends from around the world to be together and play our game. "

Do you have any plans to bring Spellbreak to the Switch or Xbox One?

We have no updates ready to share at this time, but it’s our dream to allow for friends from around the world to be together and play our game. We feel that gaming with your community is the single most important thing to emphasize with how games have continued to evolve.

Will the game will feature PS4 Pro-specific enhancements? Is 4K/60 FPS on the cards?

We are constantly looking into ways to leverage the power of our platforms. Currently, we are extremely focused on our standard performance, but after we get that squared away we will definitely be looking into the PS4 Pro specific enhancements!

How is the game running on the original PS4, in terms of frame rate and resolution?

We are targeting 60fps on the original PS4 at 1080p.

Given that next-gen consoles are right around the corner, have you given any thought to next-gen ports for the game?

We touched on this a bit in the previous question regarding additional platforms and although we have no updates ready to share at this time, we believe that Spellbreak can be played for many years to come and are excited to deliver that experience to our fans.