Public Post - The Road Ahead: Late 2026 & 2027
Hey Brothers!
Your Dungeon Master here!
I wanted to make this post public because I think both free members and paid supporters deserve to know exactly where things are going from here.
And if you've been following my work as a free member for a while, this might be the best moment to consider joining us as a paid supporter.
Why?
Because right now I'm putting a LOT back into Dungeon Explorers 2.
Better music. Better artwork. Better animations. Better presentation. And, more recently, animated cutscenes that are pushing the game closer and closer to what I'd call AA territory.
I'm not saying AAA.
Let's keep a little humility here.
And let's not put THAT much pressure on me. Hahahaha.
But the difference between the DUEX 2 I originally imagined and the DUEX 2 I'm building today is honestly enormous.
First: what about my other games?
Lukestria Family, Peasant Dream Ascension, Prayers of Distorted Minds, and Dungeon Explorers are complete.
Future updates for those games will primarily be bug fixes.
Although knowing myself, whenever I open one of them to fix bugs, I usually end up adding something new anyway. Even if it's small. Because apparently I am physically incapable of simply fixing one bug and closing RPG Maker.
But the main focus is Dungeon Explorers 2. And I'm investing heavily in it.
DUEX 2's scope has gone completely to hell.
Originally? I thought Veria would take around three months.
Yeah. About that. The new objective is to finish the entire Veria chapter before the end of 2026. And you know what? I don't consider that a bad thing. Because when I compare the quality of early DUEX 2 with the game we're building now...
My brother.
The difference is absurd.
Systems expanded. Presentation improved. Battles improved. Characters became more developed. The world became larger. The story gained more branches. Animations improved. Artwork improved.
And I look at what exists today compared with what I planned in the beginning and think:
This feels like a game worthy of the two years of experience I've accumulated as a game developer.
And I'm damn proud of that.
So what is the plan for the final quarter of 2026?
The objective is to finish Veria properly.
That means:
Completing all remaining Side Women content.
Advancing the conflict between the Princess and the King.
Introducing a major decision that will heavily affect the direction of your story, including which Romance path you will follow.
Advancing the Chaos storyline in the Veria region.
Advancing all Veria romances.
Adding more characters sidequests around the Refugee Camp.
Closing the Veria storyline with the game checking what you did, what you ignored, the decisions you made, the paths you followed, and ultimately determining who will accompany you into the next stage of the journey.
This is where a lot of choices you've been making start becoming much more important.
And then comes 2027.
After Veria, the next destination is Bertania, where the MC will finally go looking for his mother. But that doesn't mean we're immediately settling down for the full Bertania storyline.
Your visit there will instead trigger another phase of the war against Chaos.
You'll travel through several smaller regions, weakening Chaos forces while gathering new allies. And for longtime players of the first Dungeon Explorers, some of those names should sound very familiar:
Tily. Dagundar. Ionia. Elber. Esvengarden. Opala.
This section of the game will have a much stronger emphasis on tactical battles. There won't be new Romance Options or Side Women introduced during this particular arc.
But don't worry. There will still be lewd moments. Obviously.
Instead, I'll use this part of the story to spend more time developing the characters already traveling with you. Characters like Melissa, for example.
I expect the villages arc to be relatively compact. My current idea is approximately one update for every two major villages.
So right now, I expect the first quarter of 2027 to focus heavily on this storyline.
Then we return to Bertania.
And this is where DUEX 2 changes again.
Bertania will lean much more heavily into management gameplay. There will still be tactical battles, but I'm also designing something new:
A fast auto-battle command system.
Instead of personally entering every tactical battle, you'll eventually be able to send generals to command certain battles for you.
It's still in development.
Because, as everyone following this project knows by now, DUEX 2 is basically held together by some magnificent Frankenstein code designed to support an unreasonable number of gameplay styles inside a single RPG Maker game.
Dungeon crawling.
Traditional RPG battles.
Tactical battles.
Management.
Exploration.
Relationships.
Choices.
Visual Novel events.
And whatever other terrible idea appears inside my head at 3 AM.
And somehow I'm not even doing this with just one RPG Maker. Some parts are being built using RPG Maker MZ, while the actual game remains an RPG Maker MV project.
Yes.
It's madness.
But if it works...
We keep going. Haha.
How long will Bertania take?
I don't know.
And I actually prefer it that way.
I already have the beginning of the Bertania storyline written and planned, but DUEX 2 has become a very large game. I would rather work with major milestones and destinations than lock myself into a rigid script written in stone.
That's one of the biggest lessons I learned from the first Dungeon Explorers. Keeping the structure more flexible gives me much more freedom to let your decisions create your own route through the story.
What I do know is what comes afterward.
After Bertania comes Marovia.
Marovia will be a shorter storyline.
And after Marovia comes the next major chapter:
Altinova, the Academic City.
My current objective is to have the Altinova storyline completed before the end of 2027.
"But Cas... your games normally take a little over a year. Is DUEX 2 really going to take more than two years?"
Yes.
Absolutely.
With the scope DUEX 2 has reached, I strongly believe the complete game may take around four years of development.
After Altinova comes Heinnjar.
And after Heinnjar...
We begin moving toward the final major storyline.
The total war against Chaos.
And believe it or not, I've already cut a LOT from my original plans.
At one point, DUEX 2 was going to enter an entire conquest phase where the MC could travel to other continents and begin conquering kingdoms.
Yeah.
That's not happening anymore.
Maybe another game.
Dungeon Explorers 3?
Who knows.
Let's survive Dungeon Explorers 2 first.
Hahahaha.
And that's where we are.
This public post became much bigger than I expected, but now you know exactly what I'm working toward during the final months of 2026 and throughout 2027.
And for those of you following the project as free members:
If you enjoy what I'm building and want to see DUEX 2 continue growing in quality, consider upgrading to a paid membership.
Your support gives me more room to reinvest directly into the game, better CG's, music, animation, cutscenes, development and everything else necessary to make this ridiculous Frankenstein of an RPG bigger and better.
The goal isn't just to make more content.
The goal is to make every new chapter noticeably better than the one before it.
And when I compare DUEX 2 today with where we started... I think we're doing exactly that.
Thank you to everyone who plays my games.
Thank you to everyone who reports bugs.
Thank you to everyone who comments, shares the project, leaves feedback, or simply follows along.
And especially, thank you to the supporters who make it possible for me to keep pushing this thing further.
We're going to keep growing together.
New adventures.
New women.
New battles.
New choices.
New victories.
For now, that's it. God bless you all.
You are my strength. We're in this together. Let's fucking go.
Have fun~~