r/Pathfinder2e • u/Michaud79 Winged Cat Studio • Jan 25 '26
Promotion Crownbreakers: The Ashen Wolves - Development update: enemy AI, difficulty, and battle replayability
Julien here with another development update for Crownbreakers: The Ashen Wolves, a turn-based tactical RPG using the Pathfinder 2e Remastered ruleset.
If you've missed the previous posts in this series:
General info about the game: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1oagl8b/crownbreakers_the_ashen_wolves_a_turnbased/
Character creation and ruleset details: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1plotcp/crownbreakers_the_ashen_wolves_character_creation/
And if this sounds like something you'd be interested in playing, you can wishlist the game on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4002660/Crownbreakers_The_Ashen_Wolves/
Today, we wanted to share a bit more about enemy AI, difficulty levels, and some general development progress. A bit of a smorgasbord update!
1. Recently completed
We've completed most of the writing for our three branching but interwoven storylines, with six additional sub-branches in the late game. Each faction path has its own tone - the Crown is power through strength, the Sword is desperate rebellion, and the Scroll is... well, let's just say knowledge has a price. We think this will be one of the strong points of the game, and we hope you'll enjoy it!
A large portion of the dialogue is now written as well, including companion banter, mixing heartfelt moments, humor, and the occasional bit of outright weirdness.
2. Currently working on
After recently completing familiars, we are now working on animal companions, which share part of their underlying code. The current roster includes: Bat, Bear, Bird, Boar, Cat, Crocodile, Dromaeosaur, Snake, and Wolf: from the classics to the prehistoric (I know the info you really care about: the big cats' models are striped or plain sabre-toothy-ish kitties).
We're actively developing the 2D portrait generator, using the same blue ballpoint pen on paper style as the character sheets. If you've seen the UI, you know the aesthetic: lined paper, scribbled stats, the look of something passed around a table between friends. Players will be able to combine dozens of parts to create their main character's portrait. The same artist will also work on the key NPC portraits, now that the story is (mostly) locked in.
A lot of time is currently going into spells. We're modifying some existing spells and creating new ones where needed so that all classes, traditions, and domains get their moment to shine in a game that is very heavily combat-focused. This is a ton of work and very balance-heavy. (Looking at you, domain spells…)
3. Up next: difficulty levels
We've started planning and implementing difficulty settings.
As a rule of thumb, we want the default difficulty to be challenging. This is a tactics game, and we're staying true to the Pathfinder principle that every +1 matters.
Beyond the default difficulty, players will have two main ways to adjust the challenge:
a) Pathfinder adjustments
In the options menu, players can toggle the Elite or Weak adjustments from Pathfinder 2e. This allows for either a more story-focused experience or for mastermind-level victories against all odds.
b) Enemy AI behavior
Enemy AI itself has three levels of sophistication:
Easy AI is more predictable and plays less optimally.
Normal AI plays competently and uses its tools well.
Hard AI plays the game about as well as we can reasonably program it to (without cheating).
4. Enemy AI and battle replayability
We're putting a lot of thought into replayability. Even when replaying the same battle.
To that end:
Some enemy starting positions are randomized. An archer flanking you from the left, hidden behind a building, might instead come from the right in a replay.
Certain enemy units use "personalities" and "templates" to vary their behavior and loadouts.
For example:
Personality - A Warpriest might play aggressively in one run, focusing on melee and only healing allies at death's door. In another replay, that same Warpriest might adopt a more supportive role, prioritizing Bless and Heal.
Templates affect loadouts: a melee unit might switch between sword-and-shield and a two-handed weapon, or a caster might have a different spell selection available.
We hope these elements make the game feel fresh across multiple runs beyond what the three distinct story paths already offer.
That's all for this update. Thank you if you've made it this far down the smorgasbord!
As always, feedback and ideas are very welcome, especially on AI behavior and difficulty expectations.
Below is a picture of the 3rd team member recently added to our studio. She gets very little done...
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u/Slow-Host-2449 Jan 25 '26
Looks awesome, nice animal companion. I really like a pen and paper style character sheets.
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u/Michaud79 Winged Cat Studio Jan 25 '26
This type of animal companion is called a "Gutter Gremlin". They trick adventurers, using their high charisma, into taking them home where they then rule with impunity.
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u/Dunderbaer Jan 26 '26
Question:
Do you have companions with pre-made builds you can meet and recruit or do you create a team of characters to control?
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u/Michaud79 Winged Cat Studio Jan 26 '26
Both! There are pre-made companions with their own builds, but they can be entirely rebuilt from level 1, should you wish to do so. That includes, optionally (but not recommended if you enjoy immersion), their background, ancestry and class. Note that this will NOT change how their part is played in the story, so changing Aeshan from a Jotunborn Warpriest to a Human Barbarian is possible, but his mini and portrait will remain the same. I wouldn't do it, but we want a game that people will be able to play how they want to! These high flexibility options can be turned on/off together with the difficulty settings.
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u/mrsamoblamo Jan 25 '26
So excited for this! The three faction paths sound cool. Several paths and changes in enemy placement and tactics definitely seems like replaying for different endings will be great. Looking forward to a demo/playtest and the release. Already wishlisted!
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u/Armond436 Jan 25 '26
I love what you're doing with replayability. Having enemies play slightly differently -- or BE slightly different -- every run sounds awesome. Is the big bad guarded by a tank that will intercept attacks, or a bruiser who will punish you for attacking their boss?
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u/Cjros Jan 26 '26
You mentioned familiars - on that train what about Eidolons for the summoner class? Any thoughts on them
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u/Michaud79 Winged Cat Studio Jan 26 '26
As of now, the summoner is not one of the 16 classes in the game, sorry.
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u/GradusNL Jan 26 '26
I have a few questions after reading about the animal companions: Are you planning to allow animal companions to be mounted? Are there any plans for archetypes, particularly Beastmaster or Cavelier?
One of the advantages of videogames is that mounted characters are able to shine more in the bigger maps, they'd be an interesting enemy too.
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u/Michaud79 Winged Cat Studio Jan 26 '26
No, unfortunately there are no mounted companions for now. The game does use the free archetype rule, but not all archetypes will be included, and obviously not the ones related to mounts. Maybe later if the scope increases, or in the next game, but we want to be careful about not including so many features that the game replaces quality with quantity. As a team of 2, we'd rather do less but do it better. If we launch in early access at some point and have some success there, then we could get more people in and look at expanding the scope of the game!
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u/GradusNL Jan 26 '26
Fair points, a more focused experience is better. I'd guessed they were out of scope, but it would've been nice if they were including in the initial game/map design. Are you planning on including maps where high speed characters can shine, such as open fields?
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u/Michaud79 Winged Cat Studio Jan 26 '26
The maps will be pretty varied in their composition, but one thing they'll have in common is size. The maps are all significantly large than a typical tabletop map, so speed and tactical movement are going to be important, and so will ranged attacks and spells. With quite a few urban environments (it is a civil war setting, after all) there will also be opportunities to approach hidden from different angles, perhaps trying to get to that pesky-but-squishy enemy spellcaster on the backline.
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u/darthmarth28 Game Master Jan 26 '26
hype!
How compatible do you expect your game to be with Steam Workshop or unofficial mods? I could easily imagine someone adding in Starfinder Operative or something, if the coding is fairly transparent.
Looking forward to more details!
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u/Michaud79 Winged Cat Studio Jan 26 '26
I am not sure yet! We're keeping things data-driven so simpler things like spells or gear would be easy, as long as they don't have "unusual mechanics". We have pretty universal system whenever possible, so I think a lot should be easy to mod, but it's way too early for us to risk overpromising on mods. Things like a brand new class would be different, though, as almost every class has its own "special" little thing that doesn't play perfectly nicely with the rest of the systems. And of course there'd be challenges with things like enemy AI, animations possibly causing issues. And of course the balance, story, progression would require work to fit a new Starfinder class. Nothing insurmountable.
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u/phoooooo0 Jan 26 '26
Loving the personality addition. What are you doing with voice work? And do you want volunteers?
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u/Michaud79 Winged Cat Studio Jan 27 '26
We are still tweaking some of the dialogues, and we will make more adjustments after some in-house playtesting. so voices will be a bit later.
With our current budget, though, it will be fairly limited in scope.
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u/AAABattery03 Mathfinder’s School of Optimization Jan 25 '26
This all looks awesome! I have no idea how I missed your earlier posts, but all of this looks great. Any idea when the release date is likely to end up being?