Why Early Access?

“Early Access is a great platform as it gives us the ability to get feedback from new players, as well as our existing community on new and existing content. Project Fox Online is being developed with full transparency to our players, and we will make adjustments and additions based directly on their comments. Feedback from our alpha and beta, along with responses from a broader group, will guide us in the creation and addition of new content and gameplay tuning.

One of the ways we'll use Early Access is to test gameplay mechanics giving players an opportunity to play something fresh regularly and submit their opinions as feedback for us to consider.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We don't expect Early Access to last longer than a year.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“The full release version will be different in years to come as we continue to evolve PFO, some stand out features that will be available in the full version:

Clans
Clans are a great way to meet new players and form teams for Tournaments and Survival. Join a clan or create your own, experience being a leader as you build your clan up with players you trust and respect. Any player that has achieved a minimum level of 3 can create their own clan or join one, clan leaders will have to accept applicants or they can decide to change the clan settings to an invite only state. Clans will support up to 24 players which means you can potentially have 4 teams of 6 players representing the clan at any given point.

Tournament, Survival and Clan Battles
Weekly Tournaments and Survival hosted on dedicated servers with unique rewards for players to customize their character with exclusive gear. Tournaments will be open to 64 teams that will need to register on the day of the tournament; Survival will be open between set hours so you can drop in and out with your team till you have had enough! Clan battles can be initiated at any time, however everyone participating in the clan battle must be online in order to send and accept a clan battle request. Clan battles will not provide any rewards other than the satisfaction of proving you are the better clan!

Cosmetic Unlocks and Rewards
A wide range of character gear, gear skins and weapon skins will be available for you to customize your character and make them as unique as possible. None of the character gear, gear skins and weapon skins will affect the performance of your character/weapons; these will all be purely cosmetic and will not affect gameplay in any way, this is to ensure that a static competitive environment is kept and that no player can have an advantage over another. Players can unlock skins and gear through our point system; points can be earned through official matches such as Tournaments and Survival.

Map Variety
We want to develop maps that will stand the test of time and are considered classics through well thought out and engineered level design. We understand that good pacing and flow coupled with balance is key - this will allow the battlefield to be constantly engaging, each map will support every game mode also allow players to utilize any play style and strategy they wish to unleash on the enemy. As the game ages the maps may become a bit out dated in graphics, we are committed to creating overhauls in the future of every map to slightly redesign and improve the visual fidelity with increased optimization as we grow and evolve.

Game Mode Variety
In total we plan to feature up to 10 game modes, 1 of which will be an interval mode similar to ‘player hubs’ where players can relax and have a tactical chat using either voice chat, text chat or radio messages unique to your characters voice. Players of Metal Gear Online 2 should be able to figure out these modes before we reveal them. Every map released will support all 10 game modes.

Level, Grade Points and Weekly Ranks
Every ranked match you play will affect your level, whether it is a custom player hosted game or an official game (Tournament/Survival). Level is a decent indicator of a player’s individual skill. Grade points will only be obtainable through official Tournament or Survival games; this works alongside a players level. Each week after obtaining a minimum level of 5 you will be rewarded with a weekly rank, this rank can change every week depending on your play style that week; an example of this would be if your headshot to kill ratio is above a certain ratio, you can be awarded with a rank that reflects headshot mastery.

Global Leaderboards amd Unlocked Region Play
Play and compete against the worlds best on our global leaderboard, updated in real time as players and clans constantly fight for the number one spot. PFO will not be region locked, however it will give the players the choice to play globally or within their region to avoid inevitable latency issues due to physical limitations. Additional filters will be available to optimize game searching.

LAN Support
LAN is at the heart of every competitive eSport title; LAN will be built and supported as a core feature to enable real world located Tournaments with minimum latency to allow players to show their true skills. Take your PC/Console to a friends house and play without an Internet connection with the best possible conditions, or train with your team with your secret strategies. This also means that you can play offline within your own network with your latest copy of PFO.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The game is stable and we've implemented a lot of content and features based our community's feedback during the prototype tests. For Early Access, we are going to focus on implementing the systems in place to support the eSport vision within this title. We have weapons, animations and gunplay in the game, and will concentrate on tuning each. We will use the additional feedback to help us with the implementation of new features as well.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“We plan to gradually raise the price as we ship new content and features, however we will never charge for additional maps or modes in order to keep the playerbase together.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“Feedback regarding balance will be appreciated and reflect during the development process.”