Bitcraft Hands-On Impressions and Interview – Building Up to Something Great

21.04.2024 - 06:15 / wccftech.com / Kai Tatsumoto

MMORPGs have offered the promise of player agency and being able to shape the world but those promises usually fall flat beyond the premise of having a stronghold in one part of the world or adjusting tax and trade ratios in another. Bitcraft: Age of Automata aims to break that concept down to the basic voxels by allowing players to literally shape the shared world as they see fit. With a single shared world to craft bit by bit, there's something special in the works with Clockwork Labs, Inc.

My play session saw me along with one other developer showing me the experience from fresh eyes and learning the tricks of the trade in a guided experience. From the beginning, I got to see the basics of harvesting materials and crafting a basic tent while learning just how cumbersome it can be to try and transport a single log while at a low level. Given that Bitcraft will be a survival crafting MMORPG, there is a stronger emphasis on progression than players might see among other survival titles. As players grow in skills, they'll slowly be able to craft more complex automation, drawing inspiration from the ancient past that encompasses the backstory to the world of Bitcraft. However, any chapters of the story going forward will be up to the players themselves to write.

Related Story The War Within Q&A – WoW Devs Dive Deep Into Every Aspect of the Expansion

Our claim in the world was just an insignificant speck on the world map and located in a forested biome that held wood and the occasional ore node for resources. We talked about the progression with gathering materials throughout the world and how the developers drew inspiration from Albion Online for some of these gathering systems and how different biomes would contain varying tiers of materials.

The developers who guided the session also spoke about the ongoing work in the backend with Spacetime DB, which can track and maintain every variable from the terrain to the players themselves. With so much of the crafting and terrain deformation running on timers, Clockwork Labs, Inc. talked up just how important the tool was to development while also allowing their smaller staff to be able to build out an entire MMORPG.

Part of making sure that Bitcraft is ready for a global release with stable servers are the performance tests that Clockwork Labs, Inc. has been running at a regular pace with closed pre-alpha tests since 2020. Last week, Bitcraft launched its first Closed Alpha test on April 4th with players not held to an NDA, so expect player impressions regarding the core systems to pop up over the coming weeks. While a release window hasn’t been as much as teased yet, players should look forward to updates throughout 2024 and beyond.

Can you tell us what