You might ask: Chris, why would you do an open beta for a single-player RPG that released half a year ago?

To that I say: WE HAVE BEEN COOKING. Primarily in Chinese.

As of RIGHT NOW I have released an OPEN BETA for the 1.3 update of Esoteric Ebb. This is a fairly buggy build that still needs a ton of polish. But I want to release it way early for one big reason:

This build has an entirely new text system in the back-end. As in, this is the kind of stuff I should've done years ago, but I just didn't have time. But now it's done, which means: we can now translate the game!

Visken has never been more worldly.

BIG NOTE: Only English and (a beta version of) Chinese are available in this build. Beyond this, I can confirm official German, Russian, and PT-BR translations on the way. I would like to do a few more officially, but I am unable to confirm any more today, sadly. These also take a VERY long time to complete, since the game has so much text in it. But I'm assuming you'd rather have a late and great translation, rather than a quick and wacky one. Like back in the day when several versions of the Steam page accidentally had the tagline: SAVE THE ELECTION; BECOME THE POPE!

However! I have made sure (entirely thanks to the help of SPELDOSA[www.speldosa.com]) that it is extremely easy to add custom language options to Esoteric Ebb. As in, if you follow the instructions in the installation folder, then you will very easily be able to add a new language yourself. By MODDING! I am unable to endorse any particular mods myself (mostly for legal reasons), but I STRONGLY encourage modding of Esoteric Ebb. Please do whatever you want with the files. I think it's super fun. I just can't provide any support if you manage to set it on fire, which I'm sure you'll understand.

I should also mention that I'm very glad to see all the requests for localizations! The Steam forum has several posts about it, and I also get emails about it all the time (if I missed replying to some- don't worry, I promise you I've read them!), so I absolutely take every piece of feedback into account when selecting future translations. Same with wishlists, I know for a fact that there are MANY of you with Ebb on your wishlist waiting for a particular language to drop. I'm hoping to make the majority of you happy within a fairly reasonable time-frame. God, what an apolitical statement. I'm getting good at this.

The Cleric has been HARD at work. Though unfortunately he only speaks Dwarven and Diminorian.

• Instant language switching! Press the joysticks on your controller or V/B on a keyboard to change the language mode whenever you want.

• Custom Language support! Copy the template folder in StreamingAssets and go crazy. You can also just edit the original English if you want, which I'm sure won't bite me in the ass in the future.

• Esoteric Journal Mapper! The entire game world is now uncovered in the Journal as you move around the game. And yes, this is a pretty basic feature. But, oh boy, was it annoying to implement.

• Virtual Texturing! This isn't really a feature, I just want to brag about actually implementing some (still experimental) performance optimization. In short, the backgrounds are now broken up into chunks instead of loaded in as massive textures. If you happen to be impacted by the RAM crisis (which I'm assuming you are, since you live on planet Earth) then this will be helpful.

• Twitch Integration! This one is probably the most experimental, but in case anyone wants to try it out - then your audience should be able to vote on dialog options! (And if it doesn't work, please let me know!)

• Lightmode! As in, dark text on a bright background for the dialogs. Try it out and let me know how well it works!

• Quicksave/Autosave limit. Should've been in earlier, but it's pretty spooky adding stuff that messes with your save files.

• Drag and drop items onto Ragn to equip them on the inventory screen.

• EBBERIA added as the new default font (Jonna even made a custom symbol for CROWNS!)

• Save file screen optimization. It should now load a lot quicker!

• Some colors on Ragn's helmet were fixed. Barely noticeable, but obviously gamebreaking.

• I did NOT manage to get custom keybindings done in time, although you could technically mess around in the settings file to make it happen. I'll make sure to get this running before the official 1.3 release.

• Increased the size of the game by a few GB. This will be optimized down before the official release as well, but until then you can just imagine that it's more content or something.

• I'm also fairly certain I've accidentally added a new spell to the game. Though pretend I haven't so I can announce that in a later patch.

• About fifteen million text fixes, spelling errors, grammar issues, etc.

Ignore the test branch, that's my secret hideout.

To access these features, all you need to do is go to Steam properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> and then select the Localization Branch. The update should start right away. If you find any issues (which you will) please report them to the official bug reporting place here[rawfury.atlassian.net].

Finally, I also want to give a BIG THANK YOU to the Chinese localization team! It's not officially done-done yet, since this is only a beta, but I am absolutely amazed at the incredible effort on display. And I'll be sure to write a proper 'hurra' once we release the full version.

I'm looking forward to it.

-Christoffer Bodegård

(Oh, and vote for us[www.gamesradar.com] in the Golden Joystick Awards! Or any of the other games, they're all great!)