Mountaintop Studios introduced a brand new developer replace video for Spectre Divide, providing a sneak peek at “Flashpoint,” the title’s first main seasonal content material replace. It’s coming in mid-February together with a model of the sport for console gamers.
The three-versus-three multiplayer tactical shooter will debut worldwide on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Collection X/S early subsequent 12 months. The sport had an uncommon anime artwork model and fascinating ways the place gamers had a second physique that they might deploy and transfer to throughout a match. However the launch was robust.
Along with quality-of-life optimizations for PC gamers, Mountaintop has centered on controller assist growth for each PC and console variations. Weekly playtests for the performance are at the moment underway, and gamers can enroll right here to take part.
Spectre Divide appeared promising because it confirmed off the sport in the summertime and launched the title on August 1. Nevertheless it had a whole lot of bugs, together with some that brought about system crashes. The crew had a layoff however there are nonetheless a whole lot of of us engaged on it and attempting to enhance the expertise for gamers, stated Nate Mitchell, CEO of Mountaintop, in an interview with GamesBeat.
Mitchell, who was a cofounder of Oculus, began Mountaintop in 2020 with recreation designer Lee Horn and the title has been within the works for 4 years. Mountaintop raised $30 million after which went quiet because the crew discovered what to make. They constructed a crew of 70 individuals, and enlisted the assistance of gaming influencer Shroud, an professional participant who helped them with options that gamers would love. Their objective was to construct a tactical shooter recreation that individuals would play for 10,000 hours.
I performed the sport and it was harking back to Counter-Strike, a recreation that the crew liked. Nevertheless it had a twist. In Spectre Divide, Mountaintop created Duality, the place you might have two our bodies managed by one participant. You’ll be able to play as one character in a 3v3 match, after which place your second character in a strategic or secret spot by tossing a puck on the spot.
Then you possibly can immediately swap between characters. If one of many spectres is killed, you mechanically swap to the opposite one. You get the advantage of one thoughts, two our bodies. It’s an innovation that simply would possibly allow the sport to seize its personal viewers of devoted followers within the extremely aggressive FPS market.
A tough begin
It launched in early September, however, as famous, there have been quite a few issues. On September 26, the corporate laid off 13 of its individuals.
“It’s no secret, we obtained off to a bumpy begin. The sport went down on launch day. That was brutal, particularly for gamers who had been tremendous excited to play. We had efficiency points, particularly on a wider range of {hardware} than we examined,” Mitchell stated. “Within the beta, we had extra areas on-line, extra individuals with networking challenges, connection challenges. We weren’t operating servers all around the world. We heard that suggestions loud and clear.”
Within the wake of the layoffs, Mitchell stated the corporate has needed to do the fixes with a smaller crew. It’s objective is to concentrate on attending to profitability, which is a should for an indie studio that’s self-publishing, he stated.
“We have now to make ends meet. We hope that’s higher than break even on operating the studio and operating the sport, however finally, we’ve obtained to make some revenue, and in order that’s actually the main target for us. Into the following 12 months we’re taking a look at how we ensure that we are able to maintain the crew we now have.”
There was additionally pricing suggestions as properly.
“The bones are the identical, the core is identical, however every thing actually has been tuned up and improved primarily based on what gamers need to see,” Horn stated.
On Steam, the variety of gamers has been about one million to date. The concurrency is low with about 1,000 gamers taking part in, in comparison with a peak of 81,000 4 months in the past, as the corporate has slowed its advertising and is within the midst of fixing the sport. The crew thought-about taking the sport off the market nevertheless it noticed there are gamers who had been having enjoyable and operating tournaments and so it didn’t make sense to take the sport away from them, Mitchell stated.
Horn stated, “We actually need gamers to know that we consider within the recreation and we are attempting to enhance it. And so by persevering with to replace it like we’re right here on Discord, they will chat with us, and we’re not going anyplace. We’re enhancing it day by day.”
Regrouping
The crew’s objective was to make the title really feel like a model new recreation when gamers got here again for Season 1, Horn stated in an interview with GamesBeat.
“It’s not simply a few tweets right here and there. We’ve spent a whole lot of time after launch listening to participant suggestions. And a part of the explanation we did that is we’re going to take some extra time to do Season 1,” Horn stated. “It was clear we wanted to do it in a giant method that actually hit on all of the suggestions and felt like that substantial change.”
“One of many largest modifications that we’re very enthusiastic about is we’re including dash,” Horn stated. “Anytime there’s a brand new motion mechanic, that may be a main recreation shift. One of many items of suggestions we obtained was that it was gradual to rotate and felt sluggish. We truly discovered that dash simply opens up the sport.”
He added, “You truly get extra crew play out of it, which is fairly loopy to say from a mechanic, however the web result’s your crew is collectively extra you’re in a position to assist your crew. You’ll be able to flank and get into place, you possibly can rotate and get behind. We’re very enthusiastic about dash, and that is sort of a nice instance of a characteristic that takes a while to refine. We don’t need to simply jam it in there.”
New “Flashpoint” Season 1 Content material
Like in The Starvation Video games, there are sponsors within the recreation that may ship you issues to present you a bonus in battle. The brand new one for the replace is Monark Tactical, and there’s a brand new map coming known as Canal, which is able to let the crew exhibit extra of its sci-fi worldbuilding, Horn stated.
There are additionally new characters, weapon skins, and cosmetics.
Horn stated the sponsor gives you a “fight escape,” which is a defend that may shield you as you activate it.
The corporate stated the Season 1 Battle Cross presents tons of worth together with greater than 70 whole rewards. Gamers can earn greater than a dozen free gadgets together with 4 character outfits, two weapon skins, and 10 extra goodies.
There are updates to the unique maps to create higher lanes round the place you count on enemies to be and extra readability. And there can be a serious discount within the worth of cosmetics. Horn stated that the controller gameplay has been within the works for a very long time and crew performs with it the entire time now. The corporate determined its prepared and so the controller can be utilized for the console or the PC variations.
Horn stated the crew has good backend instruments and it might probably see crash charges and efficiency on totally different {hardware} specs. That helps determine issues. The corporate additionally communicates with gamers on Discord and Reddit. It additionally has a gaggle of trusted playtesters who’ve been serving to for a few years. The crew has responded to hundreds of Steam opinions. General opinions among the many 18,740 opinions is combined, with a ranking of three out of 5 stars.
Extra info on Flashpoint and Console launch can be shared in future updates, coming early subsequent 12 months.
Beneath growth
Right here’s a full checklist of the modifications at the moment beneath growth. They embody recreation well being and high quality of life updates, which means fewer crashes. There’s additionally a brand new “dash” motion mechanic, recent sandbox rebalancing, new financial system tuning (the place cosmetics will value loads much less per merchandise than up to now), current maps up to date to enhance gunplay and up to date and improved base facial fashions.
On prime of that, there can be an extended awaited “Careers” tab, infrastructure enhancements, consumer and server efficiency upgrades, improved networking and new server areas world-wide, hundreds of fixes shipped since launch primarily based on participant suggestions, quicker and snappier fight and motion and visible overhauls for a extra vibrant recreation. Anti-cheat has undergone months of tuning and developments making main beneficial properties in detection and banning. And the observer mode has launched.
“We’re attempting to be clear with gamers. We’ve been kind of quiet. We did a publish that principally stated, ‘Hey, we’re going to actually concentrate on including to the sport.’ So the dev video is actually to say, ‘Try all of the issues we’re doing. It’s a reasonably intensive checklist,’” Mitchell stated.
