Gather round, nomads, for we have big news today ✨

Very soon, we’ll launch a first pre-page on Kickstarter for our upcoming crowdfunding campaign 😱

Our Kickstarter pre-campaign page is live NOW. Please show your support by signing up to be notified when the Kickstarter campaign officially launches!

➡️Support Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori on Kickstarter!⬅️

We’ll be able to explain in more depth why Kickstarter is our best option once the campaign goes live. But to put it simply for now: we want this game to be the best it can possibly be, and for that we want your help, your input and your support.

This also means that we are delaying our Early Access launch further than previously communicated: Our initial intention was to launch the project as soon as possible in 2024 or very early 2025. A variety of factors and developments in the meantime have led us to reconsider what we really need in an Early Access version. Our initial release schedule might have let us release an early version of the game to a small audience of enthusiasts and grow and improve the game in relative obscurity. Following the media attention this fall however, we now have a vastly increased number of eyes on our work and increased pressure to hit the ground running. We’re determined to make the most out of this and take the time we need to make our beloved project live up to these expectations.

Our need to make a very solid first impression with our first playable and buyable version of the game has drastically increased as a result. This is an additional challenge, sure, but we wouldn’t trade it back for the world. We love that our game has this very real chance to break new ground in terms of what a “horse game” can be.

We’re currently refraining from setting a concrete new release date yet, because we’d rather announce it once, when we’re confident about it. Stay tuned!

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To give some additional insight into our development progress in the past months:

Game development is never a straightforward process, and even for an experienced studio such as Aesir Interactive, it’s not always predictable how long certain features will actually take to get right. With Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori, we’ve found that key aspects of the game that we had a clear vision for from the start ended up taking more iteration and reevaluation, meaning additional development time.

One such example is as fundamental as the horse riding controls: We want to give players enough control over the speed and gait they’re going at to satisfy equestrian enthusiasts, while also keeping the game accessible for more casual, mainstream audiences. We initially wanted to playtest these controls with our alpha testers as early as July, but ended up reworking them entirely, leading to several months of additional work and internal testing. The very first test will be conducted very soon, with a small group of players to ensure basic functionality, but we’ll soon want more input and reach out to additional testers. Make sure you’ve filled out our playtester sign-up[docs.google.com] if you are interested in participating!

We have clear inspirations and references for Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori, but by combining the very niche horse game audience with more a mainstream open world game setup, we are making something that hasn’t really been made before. Finding that balance of innovation without constantly reinventing the wheel takes a lot of time and iteration.

🚧Work in Progress🚧

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All of this has led to some reevaluation and some slight shifts to our vision for the game and what it can become. (Though all previously announced features are here to stay!) Which means that now, the path ahead is clear. But: it’ll need more time and more funds than initially anticipated, and that is where Kickstarter comes in. We’re incredibly grateful to have a publishing partner in Mindscape that’s on board with taking some more time to give this game a chance to really live up to its massive potential, rather than rushing into an early release to capitalize on current attention. Don't forget to stretch your body if you sit at your desk for long periods of time. Even our horses do this from time to time!

🚧Work in Progress🚧

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Thank you all for your trust, your enthusiasm and your unwavering support over the past few months! We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t wholeheartedly believe in the potential of our project, and we’re excited for you to join in helping us make that a reality.

Stay tuned for more info very soon!

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• #01 | To the Steppes
  
• #02 | An Open World
  
• #03 | PC Early Access
  
• #04 | Horse Training and Horse Care
  
• #05 | All Eyes on Khiimori

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Welcome back to another developer diary for Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori! Or shall we say WELCOME in general, because oooooh boy are there many new people watching this game now than ever before! 😱

If you’ve been following our game for a while, you may have missed that it got a whole lot of new attention recently, mostly thanks to a viral post on Twitter a.k.a. X, which got over 15 Million views[x.com] and exposed our game to a ton of new eyes and ears, and led to notable additional coverage from content creators on TikTok and Instagram.

All that social media attention has also significantly impacted the game’s Wishlist numbers on Steam, which are super important for us as developers to measure people’s interest in the game. It’s been absolutely amazing to get so many new interested potential players and a ton of valuable feedback and feature wishes!

For this dev diary, let’s therefore dive into some big picture questions about our intentions for this game, and what the explosion of attention and followers means for us.

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Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori is going to be an open world adventure game about being a courier rider in 13th century Mongolia.

Windstorm is a franchise of movies, books and games that’s mainly popular in Germany (“Ostwind”) as well as the rest of central Europe. There have been two previous games in this series, developed by Aesir Interactive. While The Legend of Khiimori is making some key changes to its predecessors - its historical setting being the most obvious – we can still very much recommend checking out the two previous titles to get familiar with Windstorm, Mika and Ari. We’ve even released a remastered version of Windstorm: Start of a Great Friendship earlier this year, so that is a perfect starting point!


https://steamoss.com/steamstore/app/2829790

In addition, we have announced the Winter Wonderland DLC for Windstorm: Start of a Great Friendship - Remastered. Gallop into the next chapter on November 7th!

https://steamoss.com/steamstore/app/3145870

Like its predecessors, Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori will explore themes like the connection between horse and rider and the treatment of horses and their needs, even as the gameplay and setting will be quite different. Fun fact: the connection to Mongolian mythology isn’t new for The Legend of Khiimori! Fans of the series will note that both Mika and Ari have had connections to Mongolian horse and rider legends in their respective games and movies.

If your interest in Khiimori motivates you to check out the earlier games for the first time though, please remember however that we are shifting gears quite drastically in terms of scope, target audience, gameplay focus and more with the upcoming game. We’re proud of where we came from, but The Legend of Khiimori is by far the most ambitious project in this series, and broadening who we want it to appeal to means that in turn, not everyone with an interest in Khiimori will love the earlier games.

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There are a handful of topics that have gotten particular attention in the discussions surrounding the game, and we’d like to take a moment here to address them:

Q: A non-violent game in the Mongol Empire of all places?

A: Our game is set during the reign of one of Genghis Khan’s successors. We’re not committing to a specific year, but we’re using the 1230s as our main inspiration. This was actually a comparatively peaceful, prosperous and safe period within Mongolia itself, with conquest and war focusing outwards. It was also the time when the Yam system of courier riders was used and greatly expanded.

We’re actually pretty excited to show the Mongolian people from a perspective that focuses on nomad life and culture, rather than on warfare, for a change. In order to do this time period, culture and people justice, we are in touch with historians, ambassadors as well as community members from today’s Mongolia. If you have a similarly relevant background or insight and would like to contribute to to this effort, please do join our Discord![discord.gg] We’re always happy to receive constructive feedback and additional inspirations.

Q: So there’s no combat, but will there be hunting in the game?

A: We’ve revealed in our Dev talk video that archery will make a comeback! Hunting animals for survival and resources wasn’t initially planned: we set out to make a family friendly game, and killing animals will impact age ratings, meaning that certain younger sections of the audience wouldn’t be able to play the game. That being said, Hunting has become such a common feature request that we are reevaluating if and how such a feature could fit in. Note that this is not a confirmation! We’re simply saying we heard you, and we’re looking into it.

Q: Why are there Warmblood horses in your dev talk video? That’s a modern horse breed that didn’t exist yet!

A: Yes, we’re well aware! Our main horse in the game is going to be the Mongol horse, that’s the model you’ve been mostly seeing in our video and image footage so far. So why is there a warmblood horse model? The titular character of the Windstorm games and movies is himself a warmblood horse (technically, he’s half warmblood, half Andalusian), so it made sense for him to be our second model in the game. The warmblood breed has therefore also been used in the WIP game while our tech team is working on horse breeding, user interface and more, which is why it was visible in the dev talk footage.

Does that mean modern Windstorm will make an appearance in historical Mongolia? Well, not quite, but the real answer is “it’s complicated and involves spoilers”. What we can say is that Modern Windstorm will appear in the game and that players will have some options regarding horse breeds in Mongolia. And of course, that we’ll share more details when they’re ready!

Q: Will the game be coming to consoles?

A: For the Early Access release, we will definitely focus on PC only. This streamlines our processes and makes regular iteration a lot more feasible. As for whether the game will come to consoles later (and to which ones), that depends on a number of factors, including the PC game’s performance and reception. We currently cannot promise ports to any specific console(s).

Q: Can we get a roadmap for when which feature is coming?

A: Yes, we’re planning to have some way for the community to not only see what is planned, but also to voice their preferences and priorities! For our game Police Simulator: Patrol Officers, we’ve made good experiences with a Trello board[trello.com] that serves this purpose. We have similar plans for Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori!

The roadmap will be released around the Early Access launch, so stay tuned!

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The game going viral and provoking countless reactions along the lines of “Oh my god, finally a game made for me 😍” has been incredibly validating: We wouldn’t be making this game if we didn’t strongly believe in a market for it, but the literally thousands of comments we’ve gotten from eager potential players these past few weeks are excellent proof of that fact.

Behind the scenes, our specific plans for this game’s vision are evolving: we’ve deliberately announced the game very early in its dev process, and concrete plans for features are shifting as we try things out and as we see what works well.

The myriad comments, questions and feature wishes have further motivated us to reevaluate what the game will and won’t have. Don’t worry, what we’ve already revealed and discussed in these dev diaries is here to stay! Our devs and artists continue to work on features like horse care, courier missions and more. At the same time though, our game designers and producers are rethinking which additional features and mechanics add the most value to our product, and how precisely we will put them all together to create a game that is truly worthy of all this attention – a game that has the capacity to be a “horse game” for the mainstream.

In short: things are happening, the increased attention has been incredibly promising for our project overall, and we’re looking forward to sharing more of our detailed plans with you soon!

🚧Work in Progress🚧

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• #01 | To the Steppes
  
• #02 | An Open World
  
• #03 | PC Early Access
  
• #04 | Horse Training and Horse Care

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Discord[discord.gg] Twitch[twitch.tv] Website[https//aesir-interactive.com+style%3Dbutton]