Dudebro has been partying hard, but the holidays have ended and we’re ready to resume updates. What better way to start the new year than with a piece of fan art echoing the festive sentiment. Courtesy of Danny.

The Dudebro II team wishes you all a merry Christmas and a brodacious new year!

Website updates will resume January 10th, every Monday as usual.

The current owner of the Carnassus resort and sole heir to the family’s estate. This Cuban general has been acting as one of Pesquali’s benefactors and is supposedly associated with the SkullPro army. He is currently keeping Dr. Beatspring Crankypants, a scientist and member of the B.R.O. Alliance, in custody.

Despite his family ties, there is little concrete information about the general. What is known seems to conflict with reports given by government personnel. A prime example would be his relationship with the Cuban government; particularly whether he is a vital ally and potential presidential successor or a sworn enemy plotting to start another revolution.

His private guard consisting of elite Cuban soldiers patrols the resort. They have been ordered to shoot on sight unless instructed not to by Carnassus beforehand.

This is the Vitruvian Bro seen in the teaser trailer. The piece dates back to the 15th century and was said to be drawn by Leonardo da Vinci after it came to him in a dream when he passed out from drinking all night. Thus, the concept of the perfect bro was born.

The search for broness was already one of the core values of the Renaissance, but had to wait till Charles Brodudaire and his 1869 masterpiece, Les Bières Du Mal, before the modern concept of ultimate brodiocity was completely defined.

Since then, bros all over the world have tried achieving such a goal. Completely unknowingly, of course.

Only few of them, though, managed to get close to such perfection. And they became legends, respected and honored for centuries to come.

We’ve talked about the origins of the project, but not really about the character himself and how his design came to be.

Essentially a self-aware focus test group character, Dudebro was designed to mock the concept of “male power fantasy” currently dictating the appearance of many videogame protagonists. He’s the “dude every bro wants to be” taken to the extreme; the very personification of the perception of “badass” in the action/shooting genre, filled with testosterone and covered in body hair.

The significance of Dudebro’s name, by the way, comes from the perceived definition of its two halves.

The “Dude” is the badass half; member of the military, muscular, sports stereotypical “cool” aesthetic enhancements like sunglasses and an eye scar (both exceedingly common for this type of character) and is ready to shoot/slice at any time, exhibiting a substantially sociopathic behavior. He also wears an Ouroboros belt (which is actually a live snake); representing, besides the coolness of the idea of Dudebro taming a snake to keep his pants up, the endless cycle of sequels action games seem to be stuck in.

The “Bro” is the less socially subdued half, always looking to party and score with chicks. This is the part that motivated him to wear a tie and a shirt that is somehow tucked in yet not tucked in at the very same time to make him more attractive to the ladies without giving up his rebellious attitude.

Now for a small history lesson. The design for Dudebro was originally created by Jocchan, who later became the game’s creative director, minutes after [nintex]‘s photoshop graced the infamous Imagine Babiez thread and acted as inspiration for the character’s looks. One curious detail few are aware of is that his appearance was also somewhat of an evolution of another character co-created by Jocchan for an unpublished comic book by the name of Hazard.

This is Ray Master, portrayed in his casual attire. Or should we call him Proto Dudebro? There are some noticeable similarities between the two; the most prominent being the sunglasses. In addition to that, the eye scar and ponytail also played a part in determining Dudebro’s current appearance. The characters themselves, though, couldn’t be more different.

Outside of a few minor differences, Dudebro’s design and personality have remained unchanged since conception.

Here we have the yeti, one of the more ferocious enemies that Dudebro will face. This cannibalistic cryptid rules the arctic wasteland that is Alaska. Their razor sharp nipples are said to be capable of even cutting mountains in half.

Let’s talk a bit about how the original Grimoire Assembly Forge team got organized and managed to work together despite being scattered throughout the world. While initially expected to be a tight-knit group by project leads Jocchan, thetrin and Mik2121, the volunteer list soon passed the 100 mark within days of the official thread’s creation. Danthrax and Earthstrike soon joined as producers to help manage the team. Once Will Goldstone became the lead coder, the game was officially running on the Unity engine. Team leads were assigned soon after that; tasked with watching over and guiding the volunteers within their own field of expertise.

The team became a sort of onion-like hierarchy with four concentric layers. The project leads were at the inner core, and together with the producers and Will, they formed the core team. Both layers were specifically meant to take the most important decisions and give the game direction, something much easier with a smaller number of people. The team leads are the third layer in the hierarchy. As the name implies, each one had a different team to manage and give assignments to. This allowed each team, whose collective was the fourth and final layer, to work independently.

Being a distributed team working for free over a long period of time meant that everything was inherently very dynamic. Contributors joined and left constantly, even core members, which led to significant changes over time, but the solid structure underneath allowed for the stability of the team to not get disrupted in the process, and kept the project going regardless.

This ally of the SkullPro army is one of Dudebro’s more mysterious adversaries. While not much is clear about Pesquali, not even his real ethnicity, the numerous rumors make him out to be one of the most dangerous criminals on the planet; enough to intimidate even the most hardened of dudes the world over.

His physical characteristics are shrouded in mystery. The few who claim to have seen him are normally killed shortly after. Despite the lack of a clear profile, the consensus seems to be that he is incredibly tall and incredibly buff. He apparently has one eye sewn shut but, for some bizarre reason, his eye patch covers the other one. He probably never noticed the mistake, and no one was brave enough to point it out. He also has a noticeably thick mustache and graying hair; lending some evidence to the belief he is in his 50s.

Update: click here for an exclusive interview to Armando Pesquali.

Presumably the main antagonist of Dudebro II, Pesquali is an arms dealer that is believed to have the sheer firepower of a large, developed country. He has supposedly been spotted in Mexico by B.R.O. operatives and is planning to sell his arsenal of annihilation to the Middle East; all of it. Dudebro has been assigned to stop Pesquali by any means necessary.

In addition to the Brodiocity Meter, there is also a beer mug in the top left corner of the screen. This is actually a meter that determines when Dudebro can use a very destructive special attack known as the “Beer Bomb”.

However, the mug must be filled before the attack can be used. As you might expect, this is done by finding beer cans. They may be scattered around the map or randomly dropped by fallen enemies.

Once the mug is full, Dudebro can activate the beer bomb, an incredibly potent belch with catastrophic capabilities. All regular enemies in range will be annihilated instantly.

You’ll definitely want to keep your eye out for those beer cans.

Here we have a 3D model for Brolar Bear, the boss described in this post. It’ll definitely take a lot more than global warming to scare this arctic adversary.