Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori News

[p]Times are busy on the Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori team at Aesir! Today we want to give you a closer look behind the scenes and tell you about some exciting things that have been happening in the past few weeks.[/p][p][/p][h2]Alpha Playtest Reports[/h2][p][/p][p]As the Kickstarter backers among you know, our Alpha Playtest has been underway since about mid-May. Access to the Alpha Playtest was an exclusive backer reward during our Kickstarter campaign earlier this year, and the campaign’s success means that from one day to the next, we went from having about 20-30 people (that is, our developers and our QA people) playing the game, to over 8000.[/p][p]The math is simple: 8000 people can find a whole lot more issues a lot faster than our handful of dedicated QA people who test the game professionally every day, by sheer force of numbers. The result? We received thousands of crash reports and bug tickets these past few weeks, and our tech people have invested a lot of their time into digging into the reasons for crashes and issues and fixing them.[/p][p]Testing with such a large number of people has its pros and cons: on the one hand, the large volume of crash reports lets us easily see which crashes affect the most people. In order to analyze these reports efficiently, we created a separate tool that sorts crash reports into an excel sheet, counts duplicates and thereby tells us which issues are the most urgent to address. At the same time though, the huge volume of reports generates additional overhead on our end. And while we end up receiving duplicate reports of many issues, we still want players to report what they see, so we don’t risk certain problems slipping under the radar because everyone assumes it’s a known issue already.[/p][p]Over on the community side of things, we’ve also tried to educate our many playtesters on what makes out good bug reporting, since the difference between (for example) “my horse looked really weird at some point” and “my horse’s animations broke after repeatedly mounting and dismounting while standing in the river” can be immense to any of our devs who want to reproduce the bugs in question to find out what is actually going wrong.[/p][p]Addressing these most severe bugs and crashes has been our first priority, because we will only be able to gather valuable qualitative feedback (such as which features players are enjoying, which improvements are needed, etc.) once people aren’t kept from actually playing by fundamental technical problems. And we’re very glad to have the chance to address so many crucial problems early on, rather than only learning about them at Early Access release. 💪[/p][p][/p][p]We’re also thrilled to finally push an update for playtesters today that properly supports mission saving and loading![/p][p]
[/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]A Hundred Small Steps Forward[/h2][p]While the bug fixing and crash hunting efforts have kept several of our techies very busy, the rest of the team has been able to move forward with a lot of other matters: “small” improvements in the grand scheme of things, but all valuable contributions to making our game a big and beautiful whole down the line:[/p]

• [p]Our level designers have encountered an interesting problem: many of our travel distances in the game were too short at the moment, not really leaving the player enough room to encounter interesting challenges along the way. This has led to a lot of careful planning on how to expand the game map. Our goal is that any courier mission is never as straightforward as “ride from A to B in a straight line”, but that players will always face some options and decisions along the road thanks to mechanics such as difficult terrain, resources along the way, dangerous wildlife, various points of interests and other obstacles.[/p]
• [p]Optimization is an ongoing progress that won’t be “done” until the game itself is “done”, but our tech team has made a lot of important progress recently that allow the game to run a lot more fluently on the lower spec end of our target hardware. One such change is that the activity of NPCs and Wildlife updates based on player proximity, so far off NPCs don’t consume as much processing power as the ones you’re looking at up close.[/p]
• [p]Our Horse Breeding Interface is heavily being worked on and we’re excited to share a new teaser: the plan is that by using specific food items, you can influence the outcome of your foal’s looks – all within the genetically plausible, based on our coat color genetics system. Where a real life pairing between two palomino horses can randomly result in a chestnut, palomino or cremello horse for example, we’ll give our players a bit of influence over that result, if they choose to invest the resources.
  
  [/p]

[p]Note that the Interface is still in WIP. These screenshots may not represent what anything looks like in the final game.
[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Our animators been creating and finetuning various animations for characters and horses: most recently, they’ve prepared animations for horses threatening to kick, the horse nuzzling the player character for treats, and a foal clacking its teeth in deference to older horses. We’ve also started working on character stances and horse reactions that will become relevant in our horse taming mechanics later on, but remember that those will likely not make it into the initial Early Access release just yet.[/p]

[p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p] Note that the animation is still in WIP. These assets may not represent what anything looks like in the final game.[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Our tech artists have been improving our waterfall rendering, layering particle effects on top of a spline mesh for the right amount of splash and foam that can be used and adjusted for various different setups from small rivulets to bigger landmarks like the famous Ulaan Tsutgalan in Orkhon Valley. [/p]

[p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p] Note that the animation is still in WIP. These assets may not represent what anything looks like in the final game.[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][p]That’s just a small selection of various small and big improvements and important steps the team has been making the past few weeks, but we hope it gives you a bit of insight into how much work and effort and thought goes into crafting every aspect of a game like Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori![/p][p]If you’re more interested in the big picture roadmap, make sure to have a look at our Trello board, where you can see how we’re progressing on various features and even leave your vote on what you’d like to see added to the game in the future! We can’t wait to show you more as we’re nearing the Early Access release.[/p][p]Last but not least, here is the link tour Kickstarter Updates for even more information on Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori: [/p][p]https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aesirinteractive/windstorm/posts[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h3]Previous Developer Diaries can be found here:[/h3]

• [p] #01 | To the Steppes[/p]
• [p] #02 | An Open World[/p]

• [p] #03 | PC Early Access[/p]
• [p] #04 | Horse Training and Horse Care[/p]
• [p] #05 | All Eyes on Khiimori[/p]
• [p] #06 | Cantering towards Crowdfunding[/p]
• [p] #07 | Looking Forward to Next Year[/p]
• [p] #08 | Updates from the Steppe[/p]
• [p] #09 | Survival on Horseback[/p]
• [p] #10 | Early Access Expectations
  [/p]

[hr][/hr][h3]Join the Community[/h3][p]Bluesky Facebook Instagram TikTok Twitter

Discord YouTube Twitch Website[/p]

Welcome back to another Dev Diary!

Thanks to the massive success of our Kickstarter campaign this Spring, you’ve heard a lot of good news recently about the additional features and content we plan to add to Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori.

With community requests and stretch goals, there’s lots and lots that we want to add to the game eventually, but that doesn’t mean everything that we’ve talked about will be available in the Early Access release this Summer.

In this months' dev diary, our focus is on getting you all into the loop about what to expect from the Early Access release and which features you’ll have to be more patient for.

Bad weather can’t prevent us from reaching the top!

[hr][/hr]
[h2]What to expect from Early Access in Summer 2025?[/h2]

All aspects of the game remain subject to iteration and improvements! If you’re wondering how close to complete an individual feature is in its current state, we recommend checking out our Trello Roadmap.

So while nothing is quite “done”, there are already a lot of things you can try out and spend time with in Early Access:

• Introductory Tasks: The Early Access release includes a first set of tasks that introduce the player to mechanics such as taking care of their horses and going about their duties as a courier.
  
  
• Courier Quests: You’ll be able to play procedurally generated courier quests that challenge you and your horses to make deliveries across the game’s map!
  
  
• Horse Needs & Care: Your horse has hunger, thirst and energy stats that you have to manage and take care of.
  
  
• Gorgeous Open World: Explore the beautiful and diverse landscape of 13th century Mongolia on horseback and find collectibles and crafting materials along the way.
  
  
• Breeding: You can already breed horses by selecting two of your horses as parents. Foals are generated based on the parents' stats and coat color genetics, and grow up to become ridable horses. What’s planned but not currently added yet are care interactions with the foal and the ability to adjust your chances for specific breeding outcomes.
  
  
• Crafting: You can already craft some things in the game, but there’s quite a bit of polish and animations missing. More crafting recipes and fitting icons are also still to be added.
  
  
• Balancing: Balancing is an ongoing process and we’re constantly making adjustments. Some features' balancing depends on other, currently unfinished systems however, which prevents us from finalizing the costs, stats and rates of all sorts of things.
  
  
• User Interface: The Early Access release version already has the general shape and style of our final UI, but will contain its fair share of placeholders and some duplicate icons

In general, many of the systems and features that make up the whole game experience will be there, but not yet polished, balanced or finished. Community feedback will help us adjust our priorities for what to fix and what to add in every aspect of the game!

[hr][/hr]
[h2]What will not be available yet when Early Access launches?[/h2]

• Taming wild horses: You’ll be able to see wild horses in the game, but taming them won’t be possible yet.
  
  
• Hunting, Archery, Falconry: For this first phase, your interactions with the world will be mostly peaceful. We want to have part of our Archery mechanics implemented until the Early Access release, but we currently can’t promise them. You may already encounter dangerous wildlife that you have to avoid however!
  
  
• Voice Acting: Our dialogues and writing are still WIP and we’ve decided against using lower-cost AI-generated voice overs for the game. Voice Acting will therefore come later in the process.
  
  
• Bug-free and Stable Experience: Technical issues are just unavoidable when making a game of this size! Our QA and Tech teams find and fix a ton of bugs every day, but when you suddenly have thousands of people playing the game, they will always find a lot more! We’re shipping our game with a built-in bug reporter that we encourage everyone to make use of, and we’re immensely thankful for your patience when it comes to technical problems.
  
  
• Optimized Performance: Performance optimization is a constant work in progress, but our game is quite demanding to run. We expect many players with older hardware to run into performance problems for now, but we’ll keep working on improvements on this front.
  

[hr][/hr]
[h2]What will become available when? [/h2]
We plan to regularly release patches and content updates throughout the Early Access period. We won’t have a strict update rhythm, but make new fixes, patches and additions available as it suits our development progress.

See our Trello Roadmap. for planned features and more info!

We aim to stay transparent about our development progress throughout this period using our Trello Roadmap. The roadmap shows how “complete” we consider existing features and which things are currently being worked on. The roadmap is also a tool for our players to let us know your preferences and priorities for requested features and improvements. We’re happy to add new suggestions to the board, we’d just like to remind everyone that there’s a lot of “must-haves” that we’ll work on for because they’re required for our overall vision or have been promised on Kickstarter, and that those “must-haves” will take priority over additional community requests.

Enjoy the last remaining minutes before the next courier quest begins

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Should you get the game in Early Access or wait?[/h2]

It always depends on what you want as a player! Here’s what we recommend to help you decide:

[h3]Get Early Access if…[/h3]

• you want to give us constructive feedback and help us improve the game over time
  
  
• you’re excited to see it all come together over time, even if it means seeing the a placeholder here or there for now
  
  
• the occasional bug or crash doesn’t ruin your experience but motivates you to send a report and help us fix it through our built-in reporting tools.
  
  
• you want to actively influence the development process by voting on features and priorities
  
  
• you want to support the development team financially and thereby increase the game’s overall quantity and quality: every unit sold and every review helps us get more visibility!
  
  
• you can’t wait and just want to play the game as soon as possible, even if it’s not quite meeting all your expectations yet
  

[h3]Wait for later/Full Release if…[/h3]

• you want a finished, balanced, polished game experience that wows you from start to finish
  
  
• you want a game that’s as stable and bug-free as possible
  
  
• you aren’t all that interested in being involved in the development process
  
  
• you’re a bit skeptical if the game’s going to match your taste as a player and live up to your expectations
  
  
• you don’t have a powerful gaming PC and might want to play the game on consoles instead, once that’s possible
  

Any questions or feedback? Feel free to leave a comment!

[hr][/hr]
[h3]Previous Developer Diaries can be found here:[/h3]

• #01 | To the Steppes
• #02 | An Open World
• #03 | PC Early Access
• #04 | Horse Training and Horse Care
• #05 | All Eyes on Khiimori
• #06 | Cantering towards Crowdfunding
• #07 | Looking Forward to Next Year
• #08 | Updates from the Steppe
• #09 | Survival on Horseback

[hr][/hr]
[h3]Join the Community[/h3]

Bluesky Facebook Instagram TikTok Twitter

Discord YouTube Twitch Website

Welcome back to another Dev Diary, couriers!
Today we want to dive into the survival and exploration aspects of our game. We know that some of our wonderful players are already sold on the idea of simply being able to ride a horse through a gorgeous environment, but some of you long for meatier gameplay and today we want to give you all some insight into what that will look like in Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori.


[hr][/hr]
[h2]Surviving on the Steppe[/h2]

To successfully navigate the Mongolian Wilderness, you will have to keep an eye on and take care of the hunger, thirst, stamina and health of your horse and avatar. How easy or hard it is to keep these gauges filled depends on the environments you move around in: Drinking water might be easy to find in green valleys, but scarce on missions to the Gobi Desert, and on trips to snowy mountain peaks it might be harder to forage for food and find appropriate shelter.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Thanks to the success of our Kickstarter campaign, we’ll also be working on expanding our Crafting systems to include Cooking, which will let players collect ingredients - from plants they find to animals they hunt - and prepare nourishing meals for themselves or their horse while traveling.



But that's not all! By reaching the “On the Hunt” Stretch Goal, we will also offer advanced hunting: Fishing, new Animals and a Hunting Glossary will be added to the final game.




[hr][/hr]
[h2]Progressing in an Open World[/h2]

While we want to give players a lot of freedom to explore the vast Wilderness, there will also be areas that can only be reached once certain conditions are met. In our design process we’re calling these limitations “progression gates”. Though of course ideally, they will be almost invisible to the player in the end and just feel like organic continuation.

What this might look like in the end is that you reach a river that you can’t traverse unless your horse possesses a special skill for extra jump capacity. To eventually overcome this obstacle, you’ll have to find some NPC in the world who can help you train your horse in this particular skill, or breed new horses for specific attributes.




[hr][/hr]
[h2]Focus and Features[/h2]

Depending on your play style and preferences, you will have quite some options for which features to focus on and spend time with. Our Feature Chart aims to illustrate this:



When Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori launches in Early Access this Summer, we won’t have all of the features on this chart implemented yet. We’re aiming for a viable product and a satisfying gameplay loop that gives you something to do in the world, but doesn’t quite offer all of the planned complexity yet.

Because we want our passionate community to understand our plans for upcoming features and when to expect them to be added. We’ll soon put together a proper roadmap that’ll keep getting updated throughout Early Access, where you can see what’s planned for which update and get more info about specific features. We at Aesir Interactive would like to offer you transparency and inform you regularly about our plans for Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori.

Any questions or feedback? Feel free to leave a comment!

[hr][/hr]
[h3]Previous Developer Diaries can be found here:[/h3]

• #01 | To the Steppes
• #02 | An Open World
• #03 | PC Early Access
• #04 | Horse Training and Horse Care
• #05 | All Eyes on Khiimori
• #06 | Cantering towards Crowdfunding
• #07 | Looking Forward to Next Year
• #08 | Updates from the Steppe

[hr][/hr]
[h3]Join the Community[[/h3]

Bluesky Facebook Instagram TikTok Twitter

Discord YouTube Twitch Website

To say that things are busy in our team right now would be the understatement of the year! Our Kickstarter Campaign has left its initial funding goal far behind and is cracking stretch goal after stretch goal. Our communities are more active then ever, keeping our community team on its toes to answer questions from thousands of interested backers and potential players across platforms.

Today, we want to recap some of the most important info and revelations and new bits of material that we’ve been sharing on other channels recently!

Our game reached 100’000 Wishlists on Steam recently – a number that’s admittedly a little bit terrifying, because that’s A LOT of people to make happy – but it’s also incredibly exciting and validating to know that this audience is here, more than eager to get their hands on the game we’ve been making.

[h2]New Gameplay Clips[/h2]
This gameplay clip shows a glimpse at our mission system, horse trading, inventory, route planning, resource collection and powder pouches:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This clip of the character exploring different weather conditions on foot gives a bit of insight into how the passage of time may affect the game world:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This video shows a look at our breeding mechanics and how coat color inheritance will work in the game
While our core loop, missions and horse care mechanics are still very much deeply work-in-progress, we’re happy to share what we can:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Recently, our coders, artists and game designers have put a lot of work into crafting, missions and horse behavior, among other things, and will soon be working on the initial missions that the player will face when starting the game.

[h2]Story Teaser[/h2]

We’re also thrilled to give you a bit more information about our game’s narrative: the game takes place in two different, intertwined periods of time. Mika’s stallion Windstorm from the Kaltenbach Ranch got sick and only ancient knowledge may be the last help. Thus, Mika connects with Naranchimeg, or Naraa for short, a girl from 13th century Mongolia, who sets out to find a cure by unravelling the myth of the Khiimori, the legendary “wind horse”!

The game’s clear focus is in the 13th century setting, with the present day Kaltenbach story providing framing.

After the conquest of Chinggis Khan, the steppe itself saw a time of relative peace and stability, which is where we chose to set our game. With the great Khan gone, his successors rapidly began growing the infrastructure and thus the prosperity of their realm; an accomplishment that is based not only, but above all, on horses. The empire’s achievements, both in war and peace, were built on and carried out by their steeds.

Managing such a vast empire needed fast new ways of communication. Enter the legendary Yam courier system and its brave riders! This is where you come into play. Thrive as a Yam courier, accept a large variety of missions, gain fame and manage to survive the open wilds of Mongolia, with a bow in hand, and the wind as your two-faced ally.

[h2]Horse Breeds and Other Additions[/h2]

With the 300k Stretch goal reached last week, we’ve also been able to confirm the addition of two new horse breeds: To fit our setting and time period, we’ve chosen the Akhal-Teke and Ferghana horse as our next two additions. The plan is that these exotic horses will not roam the steppe on their own, but can be bought from the merchants that import them into Mongolia.

We’re further excited to confirm more horse and rider customization, cooking meals for yourself and your horse, and the addition of a storyteller NPC who will introduce you to Mongolian myths and legends. We’ll share more info on how exactly all of those things are planned to look in the game over the coming weeks and months!

[h2]Onto the Final Stretch[/h2]

For the next 4 days, our focus remains on the Kickstarter campaign, at least where marketing and community efforts are concerned. If you haven’t done so yet, we highly recommend you check out our campaign and consider becoming a backer. While the reduced Early Bird rewards are all taken, there’s still a lot very cool exclusive content to secure. Every pledge counts, every backer helps us get this game closer to the true vision of where we want it to be.

Every pledge counts—every backer helps us get this game closer to the true vision of where we want it to be. See you all soon!



[hr][/hr]
[h3]Join the Community[/h3]
Facebook Instagram TikTok Twitter

Discord Twitch Website

Hello, Couriers!

To say that things are busy in our team right now would be the understatement of the year! Our Kickstarter Campaign has left its initial funding goal far behind and is cracking stretch goal after stretch goal. Our communities are more active then ever, keeping our community team on its toes to answer questions from thousands of interested backers and potential players across platforms.

Today, we want to recap some of the most important info and revelations and new bits of material that we’ve been sharing on other channels recently!



Our game reached 100,000 Wishlists on Steam recently—a number that’s admittedly a little bit terrifying, because that’s A LOT of people to make happy. It’s also incredibly exciting and validating to know that this audience is here, more than eager to get their hands on the game we’ve been making!

[hr][/hr]
[h3]🎬 New Gameplay Clips[/h3]
While our core loop, missions and horse care mechanics are still very much deeply work-in-progress, we’re happy to share what we can:

• This gameplay clip shows a glimpse at our mission system, horse trading, inventory, route planning, resource collection and powder pouches.
  
• This clip of the character exploring different weather conditions on foot gives a bit of insight into how the passage of time may affect the game world.
  
• This video shows a look at our breeding mechanics and how coat color inheritance will work in the game.

Recently, our coders, artists and game designers have put a lot of work into crafting, missions and horse behavior, among other things, and will soon be working on the initial missions that the player will face when starting the game.

[hr][/hr]
[h3]📘 Story Teaser[/h3]
We’re also thrilled to give you a bit more information about our game’s narrative: the game takes place in two different, intertwined periods of time. Mika’s stallion Windstorm from the Kaltenbach Ranch got sick and only ancient knowledge may be the last help. Thus, Mika connects with Naranchimeg, or Naraa for short, a girl from 13th century Mongolia, who sets out to find a cure by unravelling the myth of the Khiimori, the legendary “wind horse”!

The game’s clear focus is in the 13th century setting, with the present day Kaltenbach story providing framing.

After the conquest of Chinggis Khan, the steppe itself saw a time of relative peace and stability, which is where we chose to set our game. With the great Khan gone, his successors rapidly began growing the infrastructure and thus the prosperity of their realm; an accomplishment that is based not only, but above all, on horses. The empire’s achievements, both in war and peace, were built on and carried out by their steeds.

Managing such a vast empire needed fast new ways of communication. Enter the legendary Yam courier system and its brave riders! This is where you come into play. Thrive as a Yam courier, accept a large variety of missions, gain fame and manage to survive the open wilds of Mongolia, with a bow in hand, and the wind as your two-faced ally.

[hr][/hr]
[h3]🐎 Horse Breeds and Other Additions[/h3]
With the 200k Stretch goal reached last week, we’ve also been able to confirm the addition of two new horse breeds: To fit our setting and time period, we’ve chosen the Akhal-Teke and Ferghana horse as our next two additions. The plan is that these exotic horses will not roam the steppe on their own, but can be bought from the merchants that import them into Mongolia.



We’re further excited to confirm more horse and rider customization, cooking meals for yourself and your horse, and the addition of a storyteller NPC who will introduce you to Mongolian myths and legends. We’ll share more info on how exactly all of those things are planned to look in the game over the coming weeks and months!



[hr][/hr]
[h3]🏁 Into the Final Stretch[/h3]
For the next 9 days, our focus remains on the Kickstarter campaign, at least where marketing and community efforts are concerned. If you haven’t done so yet, we highly recommend you check out our campaign and consider becoming a backer. While the reduced Early Bird rewards are all taken, there’s still a lot very cool exclusive content to secure.

Every pledge counts—every backer helps us get this game closer to the true vision of where we want it to be. See you all soon!



[hr][/hr]
[h3]Join the Community[/h3]
Facebook Instagram TikTok Twitter

Discord Twitch Website