With the cute Pokémon-a-like Temtem doing very well for itself in its first month on Steam Early Access—developer Crema announced that it had surpassed 500,000 copies sold last week—the studio has now revealed its plans for the future. A "short-term roadmap" posted today looks ahead to the spring, summer, and fall of this year, covering balance changes, match-making, club management, in-game tournaments, new islands to play on, and more.
"Please, keep in mind that every detail discussed here is not 100% confirmed for the game. During the game’s development cycle, ideas change constantly and stuff we like today we might not like as much tomorrow. So take everything in here not as confirmed facts, but more like the stuff we would like to include in the game," Crema said.
That applies to dates included in the roadmap as well: "We're not really big fans of having public dates for everything, they add a lot of unnecessary pressure on the team and they make making changes and swapping features around a very difficult task. We know everyone else likes dates though, so we’ve decided to include open dates for each block of features. Take them with a grain of salt and expect delays and features moved around dates."
Balance patches will be released "frequently" during the Early Access phase, but developers aren't going to be too hung up on getting everything perfect until the Temtem roster is fully complete. "Due to having only a limited set of Tems and techniques, it is impossible to balance everything perfectly so we will mostly balance extra overpowered stuff that can break the current meta," Crema said. "Even with a not so perfect balance, we’ve seen several team compositions and strategies already, so don’t be afraid of trying new things and step into Temtem’s competitive scene."
The first iteration of matchmaking will be based on an ELO system called TMR—Temtem Matchmaking Rating. The developers also plan to introduce an auto-scaling system into the ranked queue, which will increase all Temtem SVs to 50 and their level to the level cap for each battle they take part in. The idea is that players in ranked will still need to capture and organize their teams, complete quests, breed new Temtem, and all that sort of thing, but won't have to grind or blow the budget to get to the point where they can take part. Auto-scaling will only apply to ranked matchmaking, so other modes, like in-game tournaments and dojo battles, will require that you build the perfect Temtem on your own.
A spectator mode, in-game chat, clubs, houses, and achievements are also part of Temtem's short-term plans. A Trading House, Dojo Wars, and a new end-game island are also on the way, but further down the road—more information on those will be announced tomorrow.
