It's amazing how far Rise of Immortals has come in the last month! In my last update I mentioned how we geared up the closed beta for thousands of new players and gave you a glimpse at three new Immortals - with Aislynn and The Netheurgist enjoying full reveals.

Since then we've added a horde of new players (special thanks to our partners Nvidia and Alienware, along with all of the fansites that are participating in the key giveaways). We have also released gameplay updates several times a week, including tweaks to the graphics, sound effects, and dedicated a lot of time to the balance of the Immortals themselves.

Let's not forget the most important update - another three new Immortals were added to the game! One of them you may recognize (it was released from Curse.com a few weeks ago), and if you love guns, are a tree-hugger, or spend your spare time whirling up green magic between your deathly fingers, then the three Immortals pictured below may give you a run for your Petroglyph Coins!

Speaking of Petroglyph Coins, we added an in-game store last week and gave players a bunch of free game currency to spend on purchasable items. Don't worry - all pricing options and figures are currently being tweaked. In fact, most items are currently free by default and the game remains free to play. We prefer the free option wherever possible.

Sign up to the closed beta now and let us know what you think of the new store!

Other highly anticipated features that will added later this week include smart AI bots in the PvE maps, plus a new map that supports up to three players against these bots! Players are going to have a serious challenge on their hands waging battle against on the bots across a new map configuration. This new mode combines core MOBA elements with some serious dungeon crawling and should be a lot of fun.

A quick shout out to the beta participants that have been sending us feedback! Many of the balance changes and features we introduce are based on your suggestions. Both myself (Trovoc), Amanda our lead designer (Bacon), and of course your community manager Berek, post in the forums as much as we can to ensure your feedback is acknowledged. Other developers may make appearances on occasion just to stir pot a bit.

In fact, Berek is frantically editing the next podcast for a possible release later this week. We broke out in song during the podcast recording about our favorite Immortals, cracked a few jokes at random intervals, grilled some bacon on a nearby station (you will have to trust us on this one) and answered several of your questions. We even let slip a few facts about the next three Immortal...we couldn't help talking about them.

So until the next beta phase occurs, we plan to send another couple batches of keys out to everyone this week, just in time to check out the new PvE bot feature. If you are not part of the closed beta, this is the most exciting time yet to join!

- Steve Wetherill, Producer of Rise of Immortals