Remnant from the Ashes was a surprising game in many ways. At first, it seemed to be a total rip-off of Gears of War, but it soon turned out to be a wild and fiercely challenging adventure across multiple planets, with imaginative weapons and ferocious boss battles. The developer, Gunfire Games, also surprised us. Since its release, "The Remnant" has sold 1.6 million copies, far exceeding expectations.

"We were really surprised. At the time, we were independent and had never had a game like this before," says Gunfire's design director, John Pearl. "It's always hard to get people into new games. ...... So we were really surprised at how well it was received."

Gunfire is currently preparing to release Remnant's final DLC, Subject 2923. This additional content takes place after Remnant and transports players to Ward Prime, where they encounter the origins of the Dreamer Project, which caused the end of the Earth and connected humanity to other worlds.Subject 2923 features several major new locations, new weapons, new bosses. However, it also includes everything the developers learned during the production of "Remnant" and the improvements that came with it.

Gunfire's focus when designing Subject2923 was to increase consistency in the size, shape, and content of the different biomes and environments. Sometimes the worlds did not feel even," Pearl explains.

Gunfire addressed this issue with multiple patches in the base game, but the first DLC focused on expanding a specific biome, the swamp. Subject 2923 DLC focused on this issue from the beginning.

"With this DLC, we definitely went for a balance between the provinces, Ward Prime, and Lytham (another major location in the DLC), and the rewards, and making sure that what you get feels substantial enough," Pearl said.

Consistency was a key theme in the design of Subject 2923 and is further demonstrated by Gunfire's coordinated approach to boss design; one of the biggest complaints about Remnant was the frequent emphasis on "adds" in boss fights.

"Honestly, I've looked at a lot of other shooters and they all have adds. How else are shooters going to get ammunition when they don't have anyone to shoot at? Pearl says. That doesn't mean they haven't changed anything, though; Gunfire has tried several approaches to solving this, depending on the boss in question. We looked for other ways to give [the player] ammo, we made [easier] additions, we timed it a little bit," he says. They also tried "some things with the AI" to make the adds more fun and less frustrating, although he did not say what techniques they used.

In addition to addressing Remnant's existing problems, Gunfire also wanted to improve on what was already good about the game; one of Remnant's more interesting features is the way it approaches random generation, which he said is "a very interesting way to approach the game. Each biome can have multiple placements, with bosses and weapons that would not appear in any other player's game; Pearl calls these "water cooler moments," events that players will be talking about the next day. There are "some unimportant but interesting events that you can't miss. There are different ways to get different items. But I'm not going to say, 'I really like the story. I really like the story, but I want to know more about it.'

Pearl cited the third biome, Corsus, as an example in the main game, where one can completely bypass one of the game's most difficult bosses, Corsus, by defeating an NPC called the Immortal King in combat. 'We wanted to create those moments,' he said. We can create a game that has a narrative flow, but that actually feels random."

With the DLC, Gunfire hopes to tap into Remnant's ability to surprise and delight. He says, "We'll do it over and over again and find a way to get people to get that feeling."

"Subject 2923" will be released on August 20. As for what's next for Gunfire after the final DLC is released, Pearl says the team will continue to "fully support Remnant" and fix bugs and balance issues. Beyond that, he said, "anything is possible," including sequels and similar games.