A mere two months after it was first announced, Endless Legend's Shifters expansion is getting ready for its big release on April 7, and bringing with it deadlier winters as well as a new major faction - the ever-changing Allayi.
If you're interested in an hour-long developer preview of Shifters you can find it over at the Amplitude Studios Twitch page, but for now here's the Allayi lore trailer and a bit of information on the expansion itself:
The biggest update to Endless Legend is coming in the form of a much more complex winter season. The complexity comes from the Perals of Auriga, a new resource that will spawn around the map during winter and give players the opportunity to influence its effects, either to gain an advantage or to hinder their enemies. For example, you can freeze lakes and seas in order to allow the passage of troops down avenues that might not be well guarded.
In order to pull this off you will need to offer your precious pearls at the Altar of Auriga, a new building that can be constructed within your city. Besides manipulating the weather you can also beseech Auriga for numerous other blessings which range from defensive towers to protect your territory from raiders, unique district and city improvements, and even a couple of fancy new pearl item sets, for when you need to show off your bling as well as your power.
Next up are the Allayi, a new major faction that's closely aligned to Auriga and its natural flow, so during the gentle summers they are friendly and defensive, while the harsh winters awake within them a crazed aggression that reflects the madness of the planet itself.
Given their intimate connection to the world the Allayi have a couple of exclusive blessings they can employ, some of which allow them to shift their forms at will in order to better adapt to changing conditions. You can see a few examples of how this will affect Allayi units in the image below.
Click on the image for a bigger version
That's it as far as current information goes, but Amplitude has promised to release a whole lot more as we get closer to the April 7 release date, so make sure to keep an eye on the development blog.