Dungeon Defenders II Drops MOBA Features After Fan Feedback

Trendy Entertainment, creators of the critically acclaimed tower defense title Dungeon Defenders, today announced it has hit the reset button in the development of its highly anticipated sequel, Dungeon Defenders II, removing the MOBA-elements and instead focusing on what fans really want to see-the evolution of the action tower defense genre.

Dungeon Defenders is one of my all time favourite games, it is also a truly stunning couch co-op title to play on splitscreen, or with a bunch of friends online. I’m not completely against MOBA titles, they can be a lot of fun, but the market certainly isn’t in need of any more of them at this time. I want what the rest of the Dungeon Defenders fans want, a bigger and better edition of the current Dungeon Defenders title.

Scheduled for soft launch this spring, Dungeon Defenders II is a roleplaying and tower defense title that vastly improves upon the foundations of the first game. A core pillar of Trendy’s new project is getting fans directly involved in how they evolve and develop the sequel. This recent shift in direction is just one example of how Trendy plans to incorporate their community’s feedback into Dungeon Defenders II.

“We’ve been listening very closely to our community, getting feedback from fans of the first game on what they want to see in a sequel, and we realized we needed a shift in our development focus,” said Philip Asher, Marketing Director at Trendy Entertainment. “We had strayed from making the kind of game fans wanted and the kind of game we wanted to develop. So, we’ve nixed the MOBA-style of gameplay and other ‘extra’ features we were talking about and instead are making the sequel we all want to play. We’re improving everything we loved about Dungeon Defenders, one step at a time. First we’re going through the core gameplay experience; injecting more meaningful decisions and moments into the minute to minute gameplay that you’ll want to share with your friends. Then, in late October we’re going to kick off our first major community initiative to get fans involved in the development of the game, and start working with them to make the roleplaying and item systems as satisfying as possible.”

In Dungeon Defenders II, the land of Etheria has been invaded by the Old Ones and players must rally, alone or with friends, against the invasion.. The game features brand new combat and tower placement systems that synchronize the roleplaying, action, and tower defense elements of the first game for more visceral and strategic gameplay. New defense and ability interactions make for exciting, emergent gameplay and new environmental traps increase variety and strategic planning throughout each level in the game. The team is also working on a completely new mission structure and content release strategy which will revolve around the way the community wants to play.

“Imagine dousing a crowd of enemies with oil and then the Apprentice’s flameburst tower hitting one of them with a flame bolt, lighting them all up! Or a trap launching an orc into the sky, only to be frozen and then shatter after crashing to the ground. We’re creating these synergistic systems as a way to allow players to discover and share new ways to play the game: whether it’s finding a new piece of gear that creates a whole new defensive strategy to a map or improving defenses in a way that makes you completely rethink your entire setup, we want the combat and roleplaying elements to shape how you defend Etheria.” said Daniel Haddad, Lead Content Designer.

Dungeon Defenders II is currently in development for PC, Mac & Linux, and scheduled for soft launch as a free-to-play title next Spring. The game will be playable for the first time at New York Comic Con from October 10-13.

Thank you Dungeon Defenders 2 for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of Dungeon Defenders 2.