Unity Puts the Spotlight on the Highly-Anticipated Cataclismo

Popular game development platform Unity debuted today a new entry in their Creator Spotlight series with acclaimed indie studio Digital Sun, featuring an extensive look at how the team is putting together the building blocks of their upcoming strategy and tower defense game Cataclismo. The Spanish team behind indie hit Moonlighter and The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story show us how their experience and lessons in the development of their past games are allowing them to get even more out of the popular game creation engine, and share new details about their way of making fun happen:

Made with Unity, Cataclismo features an ambitious brick-by-brick LEGO® inspired building system, which players will later put to the test in a challenging siege by enemy monsters. The creative and physics-heavy approach to player freedom and emergent gameplay mean that no session is the same as the prior, and while exciting, this became a technical feat for the developers at Digital Sun. “As the game will have lots of units at one time [...], what we did was bake those animations into textures and then we sent those textures into the GPU”, said Manel Angresola, Technical Artist, detailing one of the many approaches they’re using to achieve a game like this. Speaking on the game’s building possibilities that will be available for players, Adrià Marí, Programming Director, said: “We really like seeing whatever strange contraptions people come up with.” The team has been working hard and aiming for a successful launch following the great feedback they’ve received from the community. “Now we’re here, close to publishing Cataclismo finally, and we hope people give it as much love as they’ve given our other projects”, said Javier Villanueva, Technical Producer.

The latest Unity Creator Spotlight video debuted today on Unity’s social channels, clocking in at over two hours long, and highlights how the Digital Sun team is using Unity’s Data-Oriented Technology Stack to make Cataclismo possible. This series of videos is not only a resourceful tool for game developers, but also a great look for players and communities into the making of popular and highly anticipated games. Cataclismo launches on PC this Q2 2024 and will become Digital Sun’s first self-published game after their very successful past launches.

The Cataclismo left the world devastated. But... what if we could rebuild? In Cataclismo players design fortresses, optimize production in the citadel, train and deploy a wide range of troops, and make impactful tactical choices along the way. The game features a 30-hour single-player campaign complete with VA and cutscenes, during which players will become master builders and survivalists while joining Lady Iris, the most promising scholar in humanity’s last city, in a story of hope and home. 

Alongside the single-player campaign, Cataclismo also offers Survival, Creative, and Skirmish modes, each of which boasts unique ways to play. Whether it's facing off against increasingly challenging, endless waves of horrors, or building without limitation or fear of monsters, there are lots of exciting adventures beyond the main Cataclismo story. All this and more awaits when Cataclismo launches on PC in Q2, 2024.

Digital Sun is a multi-game studio on a mission to create games that are truly worth playing, and have fun while we’re doing it. We are a team of artists, programmers, designers and producers that has been working together since 2013. We got our start building games for others while dreaming of creating our own. That’s how we created Moonlighter, our first original game. It was a side project with a lot of love but very little resources. Imagine our joy when the game saw such unexpected success. Now, everyone on the team agrees that it feels great to be able to work on our own ideas!