Citadel Studios have sent out their March Community Newsletter to backers and followers of development on Shards Online. As usual, project lead Derek Brinkmann’s opening letter handily summarizes the rest of the update:

Another month has gone by, and it’s really awesome to see the Catacombs coming together. Since this is the first (of many) dungeons in Shards Online, we are working very hard to make sure it feels unique. From necromancers raising the dead to flame traps to rooms that lock you in, we are filling the Catacombs with both terrors and untold treasures.

The new bone armor looks absolutely amazing in game and we’ve created some new necromancy spells that you will be dying (no pun intended) to get your hands on. The two bosses of the Catacombs, The Void Guardian and Reaper of Death, are deliciously evil and we are giving them custom abilities and spells to make their encounters feel truly unique.

With the team heads down and marching towards Alpha, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk a little about our plans for the future of the project. Our next major public event is the Steam Greenlight campaign in April (Exact date TBD). We will be releasing this campaign at the same time as our new game trailer reveal which is going to be amazing. We will need to band together as a community to make sure we get through that process as quickly as possible. We are really looking forward to exposing the project to a whole new audience there on Steam.

The next event will be our Alpha Preview in mid-late April. Just like we did with Pre-Alpha 3, as we approach feature complete for Alpha, we will host a major event with a large promo key giveaway, temporary NDA lift, and multiple Twitch streams. The goal will be to collect as much feedback as possible to help us nail down exactly what we need to do before we can consider ourselves ready for our Alpha 1 release.

Click on through to read the rest of the update, and to see additional screenshots. And keep an eye on Steam Greenlight in April, to vote for Shards thereupon.