“What’s this? A CyberThreat development update in under a year? Impossible!” But fear not, dear strawman friend—you’re not losing your mind (just me, apparently). That’s right, a fresh CyberThreat update is here for your eyeballs!

Hey everyone!

Conor here, kicking off 2025 with an update on CyberThreat’s development, along with plans and goals for the year. I've been sitting on this article since January, so I decided it's time to just rip the bandaid off and post it already, so let’s dive right in with where things are right now and what I'm working on!

Current Development Work

Scene Location Updates & Verification

Every location in the game is currently being checked and updated to function as a free-roamable area and as a battle arena, to maximise utility and testing in the upcoming Sandbox build.

Additionally, I’m taking this opportunity to finally implement some older WIP locations that have been on the back burner for too long, such as additional locations of interest around Edendale City, in an effort to make the world feel more alive and lived in.

Optimizing and Improving Asset Loading

Previously mentioned in the last update, Unity-related loading issues have now been addressed. The best part of that? Loading is stlll smoother than ever, including during development! I've been chipping away and making other improvements to how resources are loaded to make development more manageable since then, including how resources are loaded for the game’s calendar, day/night cycle, weather systems, etc. All being crucial to get right in an RPG like CyberThreat, where the world dynamically changes. The progress in asset streaming has significantly sped up testing in location iteration and development overall.

Improving Development Tools

Touched on above, debugging tools may not be the most exciting topic, but they’re critical! These tools will also be included in upcoming sandbox builds, so they need to be intuitive and usable beyond just me.

The different categories include tools that can change the scene type, location, time of day, weather, and more. There's also the ability to spawn battles anywhere, set the calendar to any date, and more.

UI & Graphics

The game has had a much needed freshening up, particularly in the game's UI. Graphics and lighting improvements are still on-going.

Sound Design

Ah, sound effects—not my favorite part of game development, but necessary! While nothing is set in stone with how things are sounding yet, I’ll be gathering feedback on baseline sound effects and audio cues.

Also, I’m now properly implementing the first batch of voice lines recorded for party members! These will be heard in battles, as well as when roaming the game’s various domains.

More Frequent Playables & Updates

For a long time, I hesitated to share CyberThreat builds, largely out of anxiety about the kind of feedback I may receive. But that’s no way to build a game—or a community! And I’m now in a place where there’s a lot more confidence for how the game is turning out, so this year, I want to change things by more openly sharing multiple updated builds, as well as more behind the scenes development posts. While somethings will remain exclusively used for internal testing and sharing (particularly story related stuff!), other things will be more widely available, following this rough roadmap:

Roadmap for Playable Builds

• Sandbox Playable (Early 2025)

• • Internal build for writers, musicians, and select Discord members.

  • Seen in the above screenshots, largely focuses on testing implemented features without much by way of actual story or intended gameplay structure.

  • May be available upon request in Discord.

  • Expected: Mid-late February 2025.

• Public Alpha Demo (Q2 2025)

• • Early version, may not be 100% feature-complete (things like mini-games may be missing, etc).

  • Main goal is to start gathering more community feedback.

  • Expected: Late April/Early May 2025 (subject to sandbox build progress/feedback).

• Iterative Builds (Throughout 2025)

• • Continuous feedback-based updates.

Other 2025 CyberThreat Plans

Writing

• Finalizing the main story script—we’re nearing the last few chapters!

• 100% refining and completing the Contact Route side stories for side characters.

Voice Recording & Casting

• Recording sessions planned for all contacts previously cast this year.

• Casting for the teased main party member from the previous update.

• Additional key story and side character roles to be filled.

Streaming

I’d love to start streaming game development or other games on the CyberThreat Discord server this year. Stay tuned for updates on that!

Stay Connected!

I’ll be posting updates much more regularly across social media and through articles like this. The goal is to keep development transparent and share progress as much as possible going forward!

Follow CyberThreat here:

• BlueSky: Bsky.app

• YouTube: Youtube.com

• Twitter: X.com

• Instagram: Instagram.com

• GameJolt: Bsky.app

• IndieDB: Indiedb.com

Join the CyberThreat Discord here: [Discord.gg]
And wishlist the game on Steam! (I swear, a refresh on images and videos on the store page is coming as soon as possible!)

That’s all for now, folks! I’ll be back soon with more updates. Thanks, as always, for reading and for your support! Let's make 2025 a big year for CyberThreat! 😎

- Conor