Hi, friends. We are people too, so the desire to draw a line under the ending year is close to us. Therefore today's blog is a trip into the past year plus a couple of words about our plans for the future. Anyone who has followed the development from the beginning, knows that our steam game page was created in December, 2015. So a year of work on Soldiers: Arena coincides with the calendar year up to a couple of weeks. A lot has happened this year. In December, 2015 Soldiers: Arena was a remake of the Men of War multiplayer with some "extensions". We created new animations, tinted the sky, fixed cameras and worked on special effects. In other words, smartened the game. Plus we did some changes in the engine in order to set up the game for the needs of the Steam platform. We didn’t want the repeat of a history with GameSpy, but there was not the slightest sense in making of our own “BWPlay” or “Arena. net”. Time passed and the number of "extensions" was growing. It became clear that we can give players a new gaming experience. Make multiplayer richer, and strengthen the role-playing component and teamplay. Add more hurricane action and we’ll have ... well, not the remake of the Men of War, that’s for sure. So we decided to do a full multiplayer game, which we wanted and we all deserved. It was in June, 2016. Oh, how many beautiful sleepless nights happened ever since! Let us recall how it has gone:

• We have created a system of character development and, in fact, the characters to develop. Now we are testing and fixing them. And as soon as we will be confident, that the only the cosmetic changes had left - we’ll tell you in detail how to level up your commander.
• Okay, we have commanders now. Next we created the "hangar", which is mentioned in the diary about the tanksman. There you can choose the perks and additional equipment for your troops, form a "deck" of the units for the next fight and so on.
• Further, it was necessary to choose the monetization model. We selected free-to-play. This is a risky step and unusual concept for our games, but we are sure that the most appropriate. There were a lot of issues with implementation, but most of them have already closed and we started the tests. All you have already noticed the test "Gold" on the shop page :)
• We have created a new gamemode and multiplayer maps that underline the gameplay to which we are going. And the new co-op mode ( we’ll tell about it later ) with the transcendent level of epicness and a number of maps for it are ready! Now we write and design training missions, both informative and interesting. So young beardless rookies that come to our community will stay with us forever.
• Move from global to local. We added lots of new features. Now you can entrench and strengthen positions ( it works only with infantry now, but we plan to introduce the possibility to place and build other fortifications, such as the breastworks, artillery foxholes, hedgehogs, barbed wire, etc.). Now we are testing the new engineer troops. And you know what? They are awesome! Medics rushed into the gameplay and have forever changed the infantry tactics. And much more.
• We made a number of additional edits. Connected backend ( statistics server ) for the game, for keeping statistics of games, commanders and so on. Connected the ability to record and view replays, without leaving the game. Backlight for units, visualization of commands, icons, revision of the visibility and detection units in the fog of war and much more.
• Changing some of the sounds. The sounds of small arms are now even more "juicy and metal." We continue to change and create animations: movement, shooting, reloading weapons, melee fight, death, mine laying and digging trenches, transit animations and many many others.
• Work is humming on new models. We have almost two hundred of units for three game factions, which need to be remodelled. And don’t forget about small and heavy weapons, projectiles, entourage, flora, buildings and other. Plus we are introducing to the game about thirty fully new units. Part of them are modifications of the existing, but most of them a new in the series: cannons, tanks, self-propelled guns and some infantry.
• And another huge piece of work on the balance. This is the invisible but terribly time-consuming part of the workflow. Edits-tests-edits and so on.
• At the end of the year we started the public (although closed for now) alpha test, and we needed to prepare for it urgently adding some new functionalities and fixing it for testing through the Steam.