Some things I’ve been working on lately are Conclave Arcana and Hardcore mode. Have at it!
That's how @yabapmatt ended his first, and so far only PeakD Snap:
Judging by the replies and the votes, I figure not many people have seen it yet. I've just heard about it today too and thought to bring the link to the snap which can easily be missed to a top level post.
Now, let's be clear, he purposely worded the snap in a mysterious way, but giving enough information to start some speculations based on it.
Conclave Arcana and Hardcore seem both new game modes. In fact, regarding Hardcode, he specifies it's a "mode". Conclave Arcana, by the name, seems something where only a limited number of people may have access to. "Hardcore" we already know the common meaning in other games, it's a game mode where if your character dies it really dies, and it loses all of its belongings. That's mostly a game mode you would find in RPG or MMORPG (maybe shooters too, but I don't play them), so I wonder how will a hardcore mode look for Splinterlands because I doubt they'll start working on a RPG with the limited number of devs they have.
Besides the tidbits of information which may put our imagination to work but might not be relevant until we know more, I like the first part of the sentence "Some things I’ve been working on lately...". That tells us Matt started to have time to think about game design again, which is one of his strong points. That to me is the news in that short message, the rest is speculation, even though I guess we all want to see new things happening on Splinterlands. Although we also hear the legitimate comments every once in a while that the game have become too complex, which is true, and that keeps some people away. But I doubt Splinterlands will turn into a tap-to-earn game, no matter if that's the current trend.
Any speculations about what the new game modes might be and what time-frame are we looking at? I imagine land won't simply be abandoned, nor NPE, or the alternative looks which names escape me right now... So this seems... long term?