It has been too long since we last checked in on The Dark Unknown, Goldenflame Dragon’s long-in-development homage to the Ultima series. So, rather than recap every single incremental update that he has posted to the project’s Facebook page, here is a sumamry of the major highlights of Goldenflame’s work on the game over the last few months, a collation of links that he very graciously provided

For starters, for those of you who enjoy watching streamers do their thing, Goldenflame has begun doing some occasional development livestreams. He’s only done a couple such episodes to date; you can follow him on Twitch to catch any future streams that he does; past episodes are also available on his YouTube channel.

Additionally, there’s now a Discord server for The Dark Unknown. Join it if you’d like to chat with Goldenflame, and with others who are interested in following The Dark Unknown’s development!

In terms of additions to The Dark Unknown proper in recent months, a number of caves — seven, apparently — that aren’t relevant to the plot, but which exist to reward exploration and play host to side quests, have been added to its ever-expanding world. Not all of these have content as yet; some only exist as placeholders (e.g. an entrance sprite on the overland map), but Goldenflame is working on adding thereto on a near-daily basis.

Additionally, the game’s equipment and inventory code has been overhauled somewhat; character inventories now support ring slots, and the overall display of inventory has been somewhat improved.

However, the two biggest pieces of news regarding the game concern its playability and its name. That’s right; Goldenflame has changed the name of the project a little bit — it is now called Chronicles of Ellusus I: The Dark Unknown. The change was principally enacted to future proof the game’s name, and it comes with a secondary update: the projected release date is now early 2021.

Most importantly, though, the first act of the game is now entirely playable; Goldenflame was able to play through the entirety of the story, right up to the final fight of the act (which will also serve as the bridge to the second act).

There have been many more updates posted to the project’s Facebook page, of course;  Goldenflame tends to post status updates on a nearly-daily basis. Hopefully, with the highlights above now duly reported on, the Codex will be able to maintain a more regular cadence of reporting on The Dark Unknown’s ongoing development.