Mordhau developers Triternion have posted an update discussing what they've been working on lately, and what they have planned for the future. Topping the list of post-release priorities are a couple of "fully-fledged" new maps, one a sprawling town and the other a Mediterranean-inspired castle keep, that will be playable in all game modes.
"Feitoria is a sprawling town and accompanying village that will alternate between crowded streets, chokepoints, and more open areas and will have an emphasis on verticality and interiors as well. Currently, progress is going well on Feitoria, and our level designer is working on optimization, interior/background polish, and configuring the map for game modes," Triternion wrote.
"Castello on the other hand, is a southern-European/ Mediterranean inspired castle keep and walled courtyards. It will have a similar feel to Grad, but with a more involved castle section, including portcullis control and close-quarters fighting. At the moment, Casello has begun its final art pass, along with some fine-tuning of the lighting and post-process effects."
The new maps are the priority right now but the developers said they are aware of issues with the existing maps, and will be working to tighten those up as well.
Ranked play is on the way, with six tiers ranging from Bronze to Elite, each divided into five ranks. Farther down the road is a new 64-player attack-and-defend mode that's still in the design stage. Triternion said it's working to ensure the mode works with all existing maps, "as our levels are designed to be usable in all game modes when possible," and there's currently no timeline on its launch beyond a very vague "in the future." Developers are also looking into ways to tweak the Frontline game mode to help reduce stalemates, but again, a schedule hasn't been set.
To help reduce toxicity and racism in the game, a client-side chat filter is also being worked on. Aside from maps, this may be Mordhau's highest-priority: As we reported earlier this month, Mordhau has a serious problem with racism and toxicity, and seems ill-prepared to deal with it.
"While muting players removes anything they’ve said, you can only do that after they’ve said it," Triternion said. "We plan on adding a filter that will automatically remove inappropriate or offensive messages before you have to see them, which will help to curb toxicity quite a bit."
Other in-the-works tools to help combat griefing include a more detailed vote-kick screen and a system to enable players to tell if someone is placing structures to disrupt gameplay. "We’re also looking into other ways to prevent griefing with toolboxes and firepots, to prevent players having to rely on votekick to deal with them in the first place," the developers wrote.
Triternion is also "well aware" of the demand for mod support, but it's attention is currently focused elsewhere. "At the moment, development is focused more around our short-term goals of increasing the amount of content that the base game provides and we’ll look into an SDK and mod support in the future," it wrote.
All of these changes and additions are in various stages of development, quite early in the process in some cases, and elements may ultimately be changed or canceled outright. There's also currently no timeline for any of it: "We focus more on ensuring they are up to our standards as opposed to setting hard deadlines," Triternion wrote, "so things will come when they're ready."
