This is really random, but the thought has always fascinated me. I get that an MMO is fundamentally different from a singleplayer adventure, but just humor me for a moment: If we had a spinoff focused entirely on story, what would you want that story to be about? SK already has something going with it, but a lot of it is left in a couple of key missions and text dumps and maybe some environmental clues. As far as I can tell, though, it's just a backdrop for a grind-heavy game. But the concept of cartoon knights using futuristic technology is just really cool. I like to imagine an adventure where you play as a character navigating the Morai War, or perhaps a legend from long ago in a self-contained world. I'm really curious what other players would want from a game like that, if at all.
What if Spiral Knights had a singleplayer spinoff?
It's a fine idea (for a version of Grey Havens with unlimited resources). But the most important word in your post, by far, is "cartoon".
Spiral Knights is not remarkable for its lore. Or its gameplay. Or its balance, or its grind avoidance, etc. I'm not really a gamer, but even I know that many other games do all of these things better.
Spiral Knights is remarkable for its artwork. That's an opinion, of course, but I share it with all of my friends and many forum posters over the years. Instead of muscly barbarians and steel-bikini-clad clerics navigating a grimy dungeon, we have comical knights in a colorful anime. Even Vanaduke is adorable.
So, as you develop your ideas about what else could be done with this intellectual property, consider focusing on that? Cheers.
Maybe not remarkable for its lore, but there things that have a lot of potential, such as the purpose of the Cradle itself, what lies inside the core, and even the Apochreans, among other things. Even the villains' motives can be fleshed out if need be. But in my opinion, an excellent, coherent story should accompany the art style. SK currently leaves that almost entirely unexplored.
Many missions suggest that the Gremling king is a dictator, that the gremlings where supposed to maintain the defenses of Cradle against The Swarm and that "The Sleeper" wether it is an entity, energy or something, needs Eyesorian´s Help (The species we play as in the game), to take the role of champions for The Sleeper, has Parma´s scouts transmits to us in Dream and Nightmares mission.
The lore is not even near the true end, but if that "ending" reveals something, is that Spiral HQ has to administrate and focus whit a different aim to the Clockworks entirely than just surviving and searching for an energy source to scape the planet.
This means there should be further exploration of Cradle has a whole and helping its denizens, has well has pacifiying menaces all over the world.
And we know only one entrance to the clockworkds, the one from haven. There should be more entrances to the Cloclworks all over the surface of the planet, leading to levels never seen before, whit equipments and monsters never seen before. Has well, the rotation of the planet and its levels is not fast much fast to beggin whit. That means the knights have barely scratched the surface of all that Cradle has to offer lore wise.
Has for game progression, no need to make 6* stars a real thing, getting deeper into the core would only mean to meet the sleeper face to face, and we are supposed to protect it, or the swarm will consume verything whit its power (Wich is enought to keep the clockwors working for many literal millenias since its creation) Its better if there are added new missions, new daily missions around this premise, and even Guild missions if they consider to rework that much needed feature into something useful than just a crown sink.
And yes, the artistic direction is charming enought. that´s the strongest part of the game.
Just because we dont have a lot of lore to work off of, doesn't mean there isn't potential for it. We've reached the part where the core matters a lot and we've pretty much been grinded to a halt with no new story bits to go off of other than reviewing what's already been there for years because of the lack of updates but thats a different issue. Someone already made a video trying to understand the world Spiral Knights was trying to make and just because its art style is "comical" Doesnt mean there cant be a narrative to be written there. The art style of any media doesnt have to determine whether there can be a deeper story or not.
The big truth is we have a lot we can work off of. We have multiple creatures of different factions some more explained then others, Owlites, Almirians, Spookats, Gremlins, Devilites and even the knights we play as. There's history inside the clockworks itself (and even before the Spiral Order landed on Cradle) we still may have no real answer for in the first place. Its just up to Gray Haven whether they remember any of that after years of neglect or we get the "Trust the process" treatment.
What makes me wonder more is if they still possess the same talent that wrote the original story, or if they're working on fumes. Those energy crystal things they are adding in are something, but I don't think there is much to go by at the moment to assume they aren't just gameplay gimmicks. The main thing I hope for is that, at least for major beats, they lean more heavily into environmental storytelling and build an elaborate, complex narrative that isn't just exposition dumps or flavor text, hence my question about a singleplayer spinoff: If Spiral Knights were defined by its art style and story, what kind of story would keep you engaged with it? That was the idea.
Even with this game, they could still do that, like expanding on the Apochreans to deepen the mysterious atmosphere around them without explaining them away (my idea was something like, "Apochreans are colossal, ancient beings who consume the souls of the living because they do not possess souls of their own." I like cosmic horror). Even having an entirely new region with its own theme would be great.
i would love to see what kind of relatioship have the Apochreans whit The Sleeper and he Swarm has well. Maybe Cradle is a big honey pot for cosmic forces.
Also whit the change of objetive in the lore for the spiral knights, they would change from scaping the planet, into colonizing it, wich means the way the invest and work whit Haven for example, would be turned into a city fortress, has well alliences whit both emberlight and moorcroft manor, making these places become different, who know, maybe, the second elevator in the middle areas would work again and gates in the arcade will become more branched overall, making the capable of having a lot of levels per stratum (Or that Moorcroft Mano and Emberlight has their own Arcades whit own branching for maybe lateral exploration of a bigger picture)
Even all the efforts of the knights for repairin the Alondra (The mother ship) will make it into a fortress we can explore and serve into new missions and lore, from searching for resources to fix and improve it further, making Haven into a better place overall.
Maybe Defending missions, where outside the towns, we help NPC knights repeal monsters that got into the surface, varying from tier 1 to 3 (this could be a daily mission aswell)
And of course, the Knights studiying Apochrean, Swarm and Underworld.Co intentions whit Cradle and their weaknesses (Notice how there is no single Swarm Fiend enemy in the whole game).
And maybe a comeback for a mineral sink in the game, for the green and blue mineral, maybe for fixing the Alondra has a collective objetive to pursuit in exange of more crowns that they worth normally... Or even a mineral grinder that transform them into their material variants whit some exceptions for a new material.
The possibilities are endless especially if the devs start to imagine scenarios.
Has well nobody knows what happened to our toxic ninja gremling, Herex, after the Swarm took him to the core. Maybe he´s now something more fearsome, something that no Cutter would dare to corner again (like i did, cornered him whit the new cutter and he was done in Shadowplay mission)
Lack of SK lore fits with SK lore weirdly
Cradle is a planet comprised of several ruins and fragments of long dead worlds, and as such the amount of lore we get regarding any of all of that is about on the same level... just enough to outline the threat we're dealing with
We get the scraps of paper leftover from a dozen or so "Burning of the Library of Alexandria"
I mean, imagine if asiatic ruins comes along and we start to know where lumbers where made originally, maybe we could get a third sealed sword that retains the green color, but whit more seals, thanks to knowing where these come from (Ofc making the seals on Lumber´s heads a material for it)
Or aquatic themed levels, that has giant seas below (in likeness to FSC Lava sea below) and Slimes whit extra weakness to shock and immunity to fire.
Real mazes that branch over the same level in 4 possible outcomes of fights maybe inside newly build Underworld.COs offices, whit a really Big picture of the CEO (face reveal) of the little Devilities and knowing what really they want whit Cradle, since, they got in the clockworks via inter-dimensional summon. Maybe even a section where we see and fight in part of said world apart.
We could infiltrate the Gremling King vaults and got info on how their tech works and their hidden knowledge of the levels, this might lead to "Eyesorian Levels" where we protect random settlements from monster invasions varying whit the level and the help of turrets and NPCs that come to fight alongside us in the very entrance to these settlements (Like a different version whit different Layout of the arena levels)
Of course, finding what other bosses there might be, like a Giant Green Cube slime (That was the king before the actual slime king) and he is already inmune to poison and dwells in T3 deep Alongside other outcast variation of new slimes (that might or no might be recolors of the already existent ones whit pronounced strengths and weaknesses) im thinking on a Toxic slime cube and giant soul jelly that leaves trails that slower the players
And i would really wish that there where "Horizontal Elevators" that connects levels on a same stratum of the clockworks, this would make really Crazy any farming.
The game could also have a "Kill count" for each specific monster and its variation and give the player a bonus in crowns for each 50 killed of those, maye 100 crowns. and maybe special prices for defeating enormous quantities of a same foe or boss, has well many mechanics that in game are a reflection of the knights accepting the clockworks has their new home.
We need to keep throwing away ideas! at least one might sound so nice that it became real possibly the next months!.
Yes, Holy-Nightmare, the Clockworks is deliberately a mish-mash of worlds. Maybe something could be done with that.
I think the main worry is the lack of "fleshing out" of past lore, and just stacking more new and unrelated stuff on top
As much as I love Apocrea it wasn't really something you could have predicted being added since it's completely disconnected with all previous enemies and lore
Danger missions when they got added, and OCH both added to existing lore
Honestly I hope we get more of both but at least try to keep it related to some of the existing concepts so far... for example, how there's a lot of neat stuff about Moorcroft and it's railroad that never get looked into or that Star Map Sword you find in some of the Wolver Dens. Would definitely be neat to see stuff like that or from various scenario rooms get some second looks and expanded lore.
There were, back in the Three Rings days, some short-lived plans to make a mobile game spinoff called Spiral Knights: Rise of Knights, but I don't think it got past the concept stage. I don't know why it was cancelled (or whether it was Three Rings or SEGA that cancelled it) but if I remember right it was going to be set in some kind of post-cataclysm Cradle and apparently it was going to have tower defense mechanics. You'd have to talk to members of the old staff, or members of GH who remember what the plan was to get more info than that. They might have even done market research that could tell you what those potential players might have wanted from way back when.
If I had to guess though I'd say the main reason it was cancelled was low playercount in the main game post-launch (even though I'm sure strategy meetings probably took place related to brand growth in another market). Hell of an undertaking to make a new game out of the blue like that if you hadn't met the targets you thought you would....
It's actually something I'd have liked to know more about too - that, and this topic. There's a lot of story to be told in this game that's been left unexplored.