Fateless Games recently posted a YouTube video previewing Godforge Campaign 2.0, an early prototype of a major Campaign redesign. Lead designer Paul joined the studio’s Simon to talk through the thinking behind the changes and show off a rough, wireframe-level build of the new experience.
Before we dig in here are a few important notes:
- Everything shown was described by the developers as an early wireframe/prototype, built specifically to test the feel of an idea before any art or engineering investment goes into it.
- Multiple systems (economy, exact rewards, node placement, and more) were explicitly called out as unconfirmed and still being worked out internally.
- Nothing in this preview has a release date. Treat all of this as directional, not final.
With that out of the way, here’s what’s being planned.
Why Campaign Is Getting a Rework
The team says the redesign is a direct response to beta feedback, plus their own internal read on where the mode falls short. The main complaints:
- Difficulty spiked too fast. The jump between Story, Adventure, and Heroic modes on the same content felt too steep, so the team is working on smoothing (“feathering”) that curve so players get more sustained, comfortable play before hitting a wall.
- Not enough sense of discovery. Once a section of the story was told, there wasn’t much reason to feel excited moving forward and it could feel repetitive.
- Story pacing was slightly too dense in the realms where narrative was fully built out, so the team is planning to space story beats out further.
The stated design goal is to make Campaign feel like an actual journey, closer to the feeling of picking up a new expansion in a classic MMO, where a new zone means new things to discover, rather than a straight, repetitive gauntlet toward a finish line.
More Stages, More to Find Along the Way
Realms are being expanded with significantly more stages, including minor bosses and elites scattered along the route to the realm boss, not just a straight line to a single final fight. Where the old campaign structure ran about 10 nodes per realm, the new version is being built around roughly 30 nodes, plus side nodes on top of that. The bigger structural change is a new side node system. After clearing a stage, players may stumble onto optional content branching off the main path, discovered gradually rather than unlocked all at once. Campaign information as of the last Beta can be found here. Side node types shown in the prototype include:
- Adventures – short side stories focused on a specific hero, rewarding Aethercores (a hero-fragment currency) toward unlocking that character.
- Heroic nodes – tougher versions of a node with better rewards, meant to be revisited later once a player’s roster is stronger.
- Campfires – a surprise “vendor” encounter offering a choice between a few discounted or bonus rewards (exact economy still being worked out).
- Treasure caves – an optional boss encounter guarding a premium reward.
- Feature nodes – nodes that visually unlock other game content directly on the realm map, such as a related dungeon, instead of surfacing it through a disconnected menu elsewhere.
The pitch here is that every side node telegraphs roughly what kind of reward it leads to (experience, gear, a hero, premium loot), so exploring feels rewarding rather than like guesswork.
A New Mode: Horde Mode
The video also previewed an entirely new mode concept called Horde Mode. Horde Mode is a “last as long as you can” or “point defense” survival format where a team holds a position against increasingly difficult incoming waves, rather than pushing forward through a fixed gauntlet. It’s being considered as a strong, repeatable source of hero experience, with the idea that players might not clear it fully on a first attempt but can return later as their roster grows.
Star Objectives and Realm Mastery
The team acknowledged that some existing star objectives (like requiring specific low-rarity heroes on especially hard stages) were a sore point in the beta and are planning a full pass on them, leaning more toward objectives that reward team variety and mastery. They’re also exploring a realm mastery concept which is moving away from a single global reward track toward a more reputation-style system tied to each realm, with more varied rewards for completing a realm’s full objective set rather than fixed, repeated payouts.
Gear and Experience Farming
On loot, the team is thinking through how to avoid realm 1 being the only place to farm early armor sets forever. One idea floated was gating access to higher-quality versions of the same armor behind later campaign progress, so a set introduced early can still scale in value as players advance, without needing to be farmed from a harder unrelated location.
Bottom Line
This is very early, a design-team wireframe meant to pressure-test an idea, not a build heading to Early Access next patch. But it gives a clear sense of direction: more content per realm, more side content to stumble into, smoother difficulty pacing, and a stronger “journey” feel overall. We’ll follow up once (and if) any of this moves from prototype to something closer to shipping. This is some exciting stuff Fateless!
This article summarizes design concepts shown in a Fateless Games developer youtube video and reflects an early, unreleased prototype. All systems, names, and mechanics described are subject to change and may not appear in Godforge in their current form, or at all. This site is not affiliated with or sponsored by FATELESS Games.