Nyan Heroes Interview: Director Discusses Exclusive Details About Playtest 4

Max: My goal for Nyan Heroes is to create a fresh new IP that people love playing and spending time engaging with. That makes collecting and implementing feedback critical. The feedback has been extremely positive so far. The number one thing we hear is that players love the agility and verticality of the game. So, for this playtest, we leaned into that even more, creating a new map that emphasizes vertical traversal and combat. Players have also responded positively to the weapon choice in the game, so we’re working on even more customization and choice.

Max: Fishball is a game-changer! For those who don’t know, our development team is stacked with talent and industry experience. We have veterans from Halo, Destiny, Ghost Recon, and more. We’re huge shooter fans, and we’re inspired by all types of casual and competitive arena shooters. Fishball was inspired by game modes that are more typical of Call of Duty or Halo, particularly Uplink.

It’s not something you see available in hero shooters, and we wanted to change that and bring the strategy, fun, and chaos of fighting over ball possession to the world of hero shooters and abilities. It’s been a blast internally, and we can’t wait for people to try it.

Max: Gizmo facilitates enhanced team collaboration. He can enable and guard them with his abilities. One intriguing thing Gizmo does is provide access to high ground with his platform ability, so his skill brings a whole new level of vertical control and heightened vantage points to the game. Our game is very fast-paced, so Gizmo’s turret ability helps provide a level of security that can slow enemy divers or help protect an objective area.

You can pair the two to protect and enable an ally sniper. Another thing Gizmo does is empower his teammates to be more aggressive in a fight since he can grant them extra armor. You know, our players always surprise us by playing in ways we didn’t expect, even though many of our heroes have specific identities. Gizmo caters to the creative player, enabling amazing combos and team play that leave you wondering, “How did that just happen?”

Max: We had a few goals with the Tokyo map. The first was bringing more of the Nyan Heroes lore to the forefront. We haven’t gone too far into the game’s story and setting yet, and this map was an opportunity to tap into another unique element of the game. To recap, the Nyans are actually underground training for a day when they can take back their world from what we call the feral robot uprising. Tokyo was the last city that the feral robots took over, so it’s where the Nyans plan to start pushing back.

To achieve that, they have a virtual recreation of the city of Tokyo, and when you play, you’re training in that virtual recreation. So, we thought it was exciting to begin highlighting these story elements more. Since the Nyans don’t know how Tokyo has changed, they recreate the map with creative license, preparing for a challenging and unknown scenario. So, it’s a mix of realism and exaggeration.

The map itself was fun to design because we wanted to emphasize verticality, as we discussed earlier, and we did that with building tops, walking bridges, vehicles, and more. The layout also complements Gizmo’s new playstyle, providing unexpected places to place a turret, for example. It was important to ensure everything came together.

Max: It’s an interesting process, and it’s a bit of a science and an art. We know we want all of our heroes to feel agile, but we also want them to feel different from one another. We look at what our players are saying they love, as well as what they may find challenging, and compare that to what the team is dreaming of adding next. That leads us to decisions like giving Gizmo a turret, which is a great tool for reigning in some of the electric chaos that can come from a roster of mobile heroes.

It also has us evaluate whether we need a hero that unites the team and encourages coordination. We hope each hero complements one another and makes for a thrilling and cohesive roster, but occasionally, you break something and need to admit that a change is needed. That happened this time with Ghost. Ghost has been reworked, introducing a new smoke ability for shadow protection and an upgraded Dark Daggers ultimate.

Max: We don’t have changes to player progression now, but we have a lot planned for the main game. We have been working a lot on the MODS system, which allows players to customize their heroes. It’s something we envisioned from day one, but we have many new ideas on how you’ll unlock and enable MODS. We can talk more about that soon!

Max: We want to hear even more from players, so that’s led us to exciting things like the eXputer sneak peek session, where players can compete with our dev team and tell us what they think. We also have an extremely active Discord, and we’re engaging with people on X regularly. We want to see what people have to say, see what they are excited about and post about, or hear what they think can be better. We’ll consider it all. Nyan Heroes is a game for everyone!

Max: Absolutely! We’ve fine-tuned the game to run smoother and feel more responsive. The camera has been improved, abilities have been cleaned up for better performance, and level loading is now faster and more efficient. Plus, we’ve done some behind-the-scenes cleanup to keep things running seamlessly. Expect a more polished experience all around.

Max: Excellent question. The answer is… we are almost there. We are laying down the foundation more and more with things like Tokyo. The story is an incredibly unique and important element of Nyan Heroes, so you’ll learn a little more in this playtest, and then we’ll really step it up in the future. Stay tuned.

Max: While the ranked play isn’t in this update, we’ve made key improvements to the competitive experience. Matchmaking is now more balanced, and we’ve added Fishball mode to help players explore new strategies and playstyles within the game mode and character abilities. Plus, new communication tools like text chat and updated voiceovers make team coordination smoother. These updates set the stage for a stronger competitive scene, with more to come.

Max: MODS are going to allow you to customize your hero in a way you haven’t seen in a hero shooter before. I’m excited about the full reveal and implementation. That’s a piece of the puzzle that’s going to make the Nyan Heroes experience so fulfilling and personalized to the player.

Max: We’re gamers, and we see what’s going on in the industry. We think players deserve a polished experience, a new IP, and something that’s fun to play and difficult to master. Our playtests are helping us make the “purrfect” launch experience. We’ll be focusing on the complete game package soon, with a new trailer, and we will reveal our launch window. Those are our immediate goals, and we’re very excited about how close we are! So thank you to anyone who has read about us, liked a social media post, wishlisted in Epic Games, or played. This will be a big year for the Nyans!