Battle Brothers - The Kraken

A new dev diary for Battle Brothers releases The Kraken.

Dev Blog #109: The Kraken

27 OCTOBER - RAPSDJFF

We round off our collection of new opponents for the upcoming ‘Beasts & Exploration' DLC with the introduction of our largest enemy yet. It's a giant beast, a creature that has lived throughout the ages and is at the very top of the food chain. Unleash the Kraken!

The Kraken

As an attentive connoisseur of last week's release date announcement (November 29th!), something might have caught your attention: There's three fearsome boss type enemies coming. Each one is guarding a different legendary location, and as it so happens, one of them is the Kraken. We're not going to spoil the other two in dev blogs, but we're taking a closer look at the tentacled horror today as an example of what to expect.

The Kraken is a remnant of a different era. Its age numbers in millennia, and it has spent much of its life slumbering beneath the surface of the swamp it inhabits. The tentacled horror is myth and a legend that few have seen with their own eyes, and people have been born and grown old living atop a slumbering Kraken, for it awakens only every few years to feast. The Kraken has countless tentacles that stretch on forever below the surface, and each tentacle has a dim light to lure prey. Those lights are the origin of many a tale; in the thick fog of the swamp, Irrlichts, or ghost lights, promise company and a warming fire, only to lead men to their doom. Worse still, the tentacles will wrap around their prey, crush them and drag them through the muddy water into the gaping maw of the Kraken, where they will meet a gruesome end.

The Kraken is firmly situated in late game territory. It's an opponent to test your veteran party against, and quite possibly the end of many an ironman run. Most of the Kraken is below the surface when fighting it, and you can only guess as to its actual size. Individual tentacles reach all over the map, and they will disappear into the mud and water of the swamp only to appear again at another place. As the Kraken feeds, a many-toothed maw will slowly rise from below the waterline to gorge itself.

From the perspective of this giant beast, your group of tiny mercenaries is but food, and so it will start combat by moving its tentacles to wrap around your men and drag them towards its maw to feed. Being dragged through the swamp is a hellish ride, and your men better start attempting to free themselves along the way by hacking at the tentacle that holds them tight. Nearby brothers-in-arms can help as well. If you fail at freeing your men in time, and they end up next to the maw at the end of their turn, they're done for. The maw will shred them mercilessly in a single turn.

If you hurt a Kraken enough, either by destroying several of its tentacles, or by injuring the head, it will get enraged and let you know with an ear-deafening roar. The Kraken understands now that this is no longer about feeding itself, but about defending itself. The tentacles show teeth and begin to snap at everything and everyone. They continue to wrap around your men and drag them towards the maw, but they do it so tight now that they slowly crush and suffocate their victim along the way, meaning that your men will lose hitpoints at every turn they end while entrapped like this.

Should you manage to beat the Kraken, you'll not only get the treasure it guarded, but you'll be able to craft items from its remains, and you'll unlock it to appear as a regular albeit rare enemy in swamps across the wild for your epicly long campaign.

DLC Supporter Edition

Thanks to the overwhelmingly positive response to last week's release date announcement, and many people expressing their desire to support us even beyond the asking price of the ‘Beasts & Exploration' DLC, we've decided to also offer it as a special Supporter Edition. This Supporter Edition will be priced at $19.99 and include a new player banner and shields with a Kraken motif as a thank you from us to you.

More information.

Anybody of you who played Battle Brothers: Is there actually an end at this game? Can you beat it? Or is it an endless game?

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Anybody of you who played Battle Brothers: Is there actually an end at this game? Can you beat it? Or is it an endless game?

there are crisis that you have to resolve, basically (don't know if you want em spoilered) you will have to face events that influence the Whole maps : wars, invasions etc…
Ambitions system as well is some kind to mid term goal system to add continuity to pure sandbox and don't forget endgame locations (i won't spoil) where you can test your bands of veterans.
Consider that your game ends when you feel like it cause there is a retirement system, obviously more epic deeds you have done greater the glory.

Hrm, ok. Thank you for the answer. I actually prefer to have a clear ending point, maybe with the option to continue like in the Civilization games or Dark Sun, but nevertheless a point when I "won" the game.

There is no clear end point but essentially beating the crises is the end game. Probably around 250 days in game which I'd say is over 40 hours worth of game play.

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That is all. I thought last week was the last announcement with the release date. Now they are adding Krakens and 2 other end game monsters. Get the f-ck out of here, it's just too much for my heart to handle.

It can be an endless game also thank Woden. I played a game to a 1000 days. Was the best time I had computer gaming since I beat my college roommate in Techmo Bowl on the last play running BO Jackson. He put his hand thru the wall.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Anybody of you who played Battle Brothers: Is there actually an end at this game? Can you beat it? Or is it an endless game?

Actually, it was supposed to be a failure game. At some point, it should have been impossible to upkeep a company.

The direction was lost under pressure of players who can not bear the idea of losing.
They must conquer, they must prevail, they must dominate.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
\I actually prefer to have a clear ending point, maybe with the option to continue like in the Civilization games or Dark Sun, but nevertheless a point when I "won" the game.

That's *exactly* what's on offer here. There's an Orc invasion for example, you defeat them, you've won. Big reward, win screen, etc. Then you have the option to continue.

I've never spoken to anyone who's played this game and was disappointed. Even on the Steam forums, complaints mostly range around whining for more content and mod support.

Or how hard it is to keep your favorite brothers alive early.

Oh yeah, the 3 starting bros… Even when they are not that good I have to keep them alive. They're the only one left from Captain Bernhard company after all!

Meh. Fighting creatures like the Kraken isn't tactically interesting because you're mostly in stay-alive mode trying to deal with each random tentacle crisis.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Anybody of you who played Battle Brothers: Is there actually an end at this game? Can you beat it? Or is it an endless game?

You essentially set in a "win" condition in the menu, but you can continue on even after you've won. There are threee possible crises in the game. You can play through one, play through all three, or play forever. I played through one and retired. I'll replay through another one at some point. You can also choose which crisis comes first, so I played through the greenskin crisis in my first playthrough. For the next one I'll choose one of the others.

Wonder if they will add one new crisis with the DLC?