As if my FPS plate wasn’t full enough already with MechWarrior Online, Arma 3, and Shadow Warrior, Tripwire Interactive just published a free content update for Rising Storm (one of our favorite shooters of the year) and Red Orchestra 2 that adds a new map and a Multiplayer Campaign mode, among other improvements.

The new map is Betio, a beachside cluttered with barracks and bunkers that puts the Americans on the attack. Tripwire says it “recreates the push of the US 2nd Marine Division across the devastated island against their counterparts in the 6th Special Naval Landing Force (the Japanese ‘Marines’) as the US forces attempt to disable key tactical objectives such as naval guns and transmitter stations. The map favors desperate pitched defenses and assaults at all costs.”

Island Assault also adds Multiplayer Campaign mode, a longer format for Rising Storm and RO2 multiplayer where the results of individual matches affect a strategic map over multiple rounds. Two new guns are also included: the PPS-42 SMG for RO2 and the Japanese Type 97 sniper rifle in Rising Storm, which Tripwire says is “more accurate than the existing Type 99 sniper rifle.”

In coordination with the content release Rising Storm is free on Steam today through Sunday, September 29.

Tripwire Interactive have executed the final phase of an almost half-year long rescue mission. After identifying the winning maps of a $35,000 mapping contest, they managed to smuggle the first batch into Red Orchestra 2 back in April. Now, they've returned, and those that were left behind have become the brave survivors of Operation: Counterattack Map Pack 2.



Here's what the second community bundle contains:


Bridges of Druzhina, by Kieran Tobin: "features asymmetrical gameplay with the Soviets attacking across open country supported by a single tank, through a destroyed city and on to the final bridge."
Cold Steel, by Johan van Pelt: "a lethal warren of huge factory buildings, creating both longer-range fire-fights and sudden, brutal close-quarters battles."
Gumrak Station, by Maik Dokter: "a re-imagining of an old favorite from the original Red Orchestra, as the Germans assault through trenches and a small village to the railway station of the title."


The maps are now available in Red Orchestra 2 and Rising Storm multiplayer. And if you're not impressed by the official addition of maps that have been available on the Steam Workshop for months, a currently running Rising Storm mapping contest should ensure new warzones are due soon.

If you don't own Red Orchestra 2 or its Pacific brother Rising Storm, a current Steam sale has them both reduced until Thursday.

Guns, guns, and more guns might just be some of John Gibson's favorite things—he's the President of Tripwire Interactive, the studio behind Red Orchestra and Killing Floor.

Name: John Gibson
Occupation: President of Tripwire Interactive
Location: Roswell, GA
Twitter: @RammJaeger

Who are you?

My name is John Gibson and I am the President of Tripwire Interactive. Most people know me from my work on Rising Storm, Red Orchestra 1 and 2, and Killing Floor. I do a lot of business and leadership work here at Tripwire, but I also work on designs and I even get to code quite a bit still. If you love the weapons in Tripwire's games, I've worked on the code for most of them (along with some really talented artists, animators and sound designers). If you hate the weapons in Tripwire's games, well, I guess you can blame me for that too...
"You have fallen into a pit of angry wolverines and are eaten..."
What's in your PC?

My PC runs Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit with an Intel Core i7-3930k CPU at 3.2GHZ, dual Nvidia Geforce GTX 470's in SLI mode, a Creative Recon3d sound card, dual Asus monitors, and Logitech Z-5500 THX certified speakers.

What's the most interesting part of your setup?

I guess it would be the Logitech 5.1 THX certified 5.1 surround speakers. Because I do a lot of work with the audio and weapons coding in our games I get to run a rocking sound system on my rig. Because of this, when we had our office space built they actually put a lot of extra sound deadening material in the walls to protect the innocent bystanders in the nearby offices. From what I hear though I still drive them nuts with my loud speakers...

Image hunt: Spot the copy of PC Gamer!

What’s on your desk?

Aside from the usual PC peripherals, I keep a copy of Military Small Arms of the 20th Century on my desk most of the time. My wife gave it to me as a gift when I got my first job programming games back in 2003 and I've used it for reference on every game I've worked on since then. On the shelf on the other side of my monitors is a picture of my lovely wife Jessica. That picture reminds of all the love and support she has given me throughout the years of getting Tripwire off the ground and keeping it going. Above that is a picture titled "The Full Armor of God" with a quote from Ephesians 6. That one keeps me focused on my faith.

What are you playing right now?

I'm usually an FPS person through and through, but lately I've really been sucked into Telltales' Walking Dead games. They remind me of the old Choose Your Own Adventure books from when I was a kid. If you never read those books they worked like this:

"You see two doors in front of you. If you choose the left door turn to page 5. If you choose the right door turn to page 10."
I choose the left door and turn to page 10. "You have fallen into a pit of angry wolverines and are eaten..."

"I really enjoy stepping outside myself for a while and being a big kid playing make believe on my computer."
But seriously, I love watching my decisions play out through the episodes. The writing and characters are amazing. Aside from that I really enjoy flight sims and racing games when I can be bothered to hook up my flight yoke or steering wheel and my TrackIR. Honestly though, I spend most of my spare gaming time playing Tripwire games. You would figure I work on them so much that I wouldn't want to, but I really enjoy playing them. Especially Rising Storm, because it started out as a mod created by a different team, it is a lot more fresh to me. I got to come in and play as a fan because I didn't work on it from start to finish. So most days you'll find me on servers leading banzai charges or burning people with flamethrowers.

 

What’s your favorite game and why?

My favorite game in the past few years was Mass Effect. The game really sucked me in with its storytelling and universe. If you go way back, the original Deus Ex is probably my favorite game of all time. If you go way, way back I really loved the original Doom so much that my band named one of our songs "Knee Deep in the Dead."

Why do you game?

I game because it allows me to have experiences that I could never have in everyday life. Whether it is storming the beaches of Iwo Jima or unraveling the secrets of a sci-fi universe, I really enjoy stepping outside myself for a while and being a big kid playing make believe on my computer.

How I Game is a weekly spotlight of developers, pro gamers, and community members. Know someone who you’d like to see featured? Drop a comment below.

Tripwire continues to create reasons to hop back into its four-year old co-op shooter. After bestowing a low-grav moon base map last Christmas, Killing Floor kicks off a new holiday event tomorrow, the Summer Sideshow Pier of Pain, bringing with it the first new mode since it released.

“Objective Mode” layers tasks like VIP escort and item retrieval atop Killing Floor’s standard, wave-based monster killing. The mode is initially playable on Steamland, a new map, but Tripwire is also including mod tools in the Pier of Pain update for the game’s community to create more Objective Mode maps. Tripwire invited me to an exclusive playtest of the map earlier today, shown in the video above.

Killing Floor will be free to play for a week beginning July 4. New weapons and skins are also packaged in the update as unlockables or DLC, shown below.

Community Steampunk Weapon Pack

The Orca Bomb Propeller - The Orca Bomb Propeller tosses little delayed explosive bombs. Good for those bank shots!
Multichamber ZED Thrower - A steam-powered lead launching auto shotgun, with a secondary steam discharge that will knock enemies away!
Single Piston Longmusket - A finely crafted long rifle from the Victorian era fitted with telescopic aiming optics.
Dr. T's Lead Delivery System - Thy weapon is before you. May it's drum beat a sound of terrible fear into your enemies.


Golden Gun Weapon Pack 2

Golden Tiger-Striped Hand Cannons
Golden Chainsaw
Golden Flamethrower
Golden AA12

Here at PC Gamer we like to play PC games. Sometimes, we even like to play them with other people. That’s why we’ve got a huge lineup of game servers hosted by GameServers.com. Feel free to hop on whenever, or join us on Community Friday or during our other random events.

All servers hosted in the US. We'll update this list with PC Gamer UK's servers as soon as possible.
CS:GO Arms Race


The in-game matchmaking system only lets 10 players duke it out in Arms Race. Our server has room for 24 players with the latest and greatest custom Arms Race-compatible maps from the Steam Workshop.
CS:GO Classic Casual


Our very first community events took place on the server we like to call: The Psychedelic Den of Map Experimentation. Try out some of the best maps available on the Steam workshop in our 24-player, 128 tick server.
Rising Storm


Join the Axis or Allies as we battle it out on PCG’s Rising Storm server. Territories mode is the name of the game with our soon-to-be ranked server.
Battlefield 3


Vehicle enthusiasts can drive around in our 64-player Battlefield 3 server. Watch out for mortars!
DayZ


Part of the public hive, our DayZ server is a great place for you to scavenge for loot, meet new friends, or hunt down some bandit scum.
Minecraft


A 32-player Minecraft server with the Tekkit Classic mod installed. Download the Tekkit client before jumping on to play!
Team Fortress 2


Show off your hats and other accessories on the PCG TF2 server. We’re running the official maplist with support for 24 players.
Left 4 Dead 2


If you’re looking for a reliable dedicated server for your co-op zombie escapades, look no further than the PCG 8-man Left 4 Dead 2 server. Pick your favorite flavor of L4D2 and murder some zombies.
Unreal Tournament 2004


A staple of the PCG offices, now you too can join in on the fun with our 32-player UT2K4 server.
GoldenEye: Source


If it wasn’t already clear, PCG loves mods. In fact, we love them so much that we’ve set up a 16 player GoldenEye: Source server for you guys to play on.
Natural Selection 2


For whatever reason there’s a 10-slot maximum on our Natural Selection 2 server. We like to think that this encourages teamwork.
Killing Floor


Another co-op zombie classic, jump into our 6-player Killing Floor server to play with other PCG community members.

If you’ve got server requests, plugins, mods, or other suggestions, email jake@pcgamer.com or ben@pcgamer.com.

If I was nerdy enough to have a "favorite engine," it would probably be the Unreal Engine—not necessarily for its technical achievements (though you can't say it hasn't been an essential tool for developers in the past decade), but for its accessibility. The easy-breezy development kit has been especially kind to indies, and because of that, some brilliantly creative games have been built on the engine. Now Steam's flogging an Unreal Indie Bundle, and for $20, it's actually got a pretty admirable selection of games.

In the seven-game lineup, the stand-outs for me are the hypercute Dungeon Defenders and slick-looking Sanctum - these are two tower defense games I've dragged numerous pals into playing the past couple of years, and I'd feel pretty pleased with myself if I could drag the readers of PC Gamer into playing it too. Meanwhile, I'm also looking forward to giving Primal Carnage a whirl. While our preview in October last year thought it decent despite not seeming quite fleshed out, it's half a year onward, and I'm dying to see if those promisingly savage dinosaurs have cut their teeth on the beta stage and become truly, frighteningly awesome.

The other games included in the package are Q.U.B.E., The Ball, Unmechanical, and Waves. All up, the games are worth about $80, but in the Steam bundle? You can get 'em for twenty. Though there isn't a specified end date for the promotion, it's warning that it'll be around "for a limited time only."

In this episode we discuss the crime games of yesteryear, the team's adventures in Red Orchestra 2 and Chris' first faltering steps into Defiance. Also featuring round two of our' ongoing attempt to figure out Tomb Raider and what happens when Graham answers Twitter questions before he's had his milk.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or download the MP3 directly. You can also listen on YouTube. To ask us questions, follow the PC Gamer Twitter account - we'll put out a call in the morning before we record, which is usually a Monday. You can also follow us individually:

Chris - @CThursten
Tom Senior - @PCGLudo
Graham - @Gonnas
Marsh - @marshdavies

Show notes
Graham's Red Orchestra 2 review from a while back.
Chris' Tomb Raider review. Last time, we promise.
First footage of EA's next shooter, 'The Adventures of Captain Gets His Leg Trapped Man'.
Current descriptions of Thief 4's plot describe Garrett as returning to The City, so it sounds like the new game isn't quite a straight reboot.

Tripwire Interactive is one of the handful of studios that have made the jump from modest modding origins to professional, full-time, make-your-mom-proud game development. Until last year, the studio operated out of the bottom floor of a Georgia church. And through releasing Red Orchestra 2 and the 1.7-million-selling Killing Floor (originally a mod), Tripwire has encouraged and regularly rewarded modders and map-makers.

As Red Orchestra 2 was being developed, Tripwire committed to creating an SDK during development, allowing modders to get cracking before the game's release. With modding support for modern games less ubiquitous than we'd like it to be, I asked Tripwire President John Gibson how hard it was for Tripwire to build mod support while they were developing the game itself.

"It was a honestly a massive effort. At some point and times we had our entire engineering team, our entire code team, working on just supporting the SDK while we were still developing . There would be like a month where we'd be like, 'Okay, this month we have to catch the SDK up so that the guys in Rising Storm can keep working.' It was a lot of work. But I think that it's worth it. One of the big strengths of the PC as a platform is moddability," says Gibson.

In addition to Rising Storm. Gibson mentions that more Red Orchestra 2 mods are in development: In Country: Vietnam, WWI mod Grabenkrieg, and vehicle add-ons. "As a developer it's so fun to me to be able to experience that content. Because when you're developing something, you see it ... and you play it a thousand times before it's finished. But when mod content comes out, I get to experience it just like a fan, and it's very exciting."

Gibson also offers a polite critique to DICE about Battlefield 3's lack of moddability. "They've openly come out and said 'We won't give out mod tools because we don't think that modders are smart enough or good enough--I can't remember the exact quote--to use our tools. And I think that that's just a shame because one of the things particularly in the early days that made Battlefield such a success was Desert Combat. I’ve heard from mostly reliable sources that 50 percent of the people that were buying Battlefield 1942 were buying it to play Desert Combat. And not giving out mod tools has limited Battlefield 3 to any of that kind of innovation," says Gibson. "It's a real shame because, you know, there might be some really cool shooter that would come out of that, or a really cool mod. And the fans are losing out because of that."

Tripwire's currently having a ludicrous sale on Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45, Red Orchestra 2, and Killing Floor through the Humble Weekly Sale, which runs through this weekend.

Tripwire's World War 2-based multiplayer shooter Red Orchestra 2 has just received an update adding four free new maps! And there's a free Steam weekend, giving you a chance to try out the game! And, right now, it's ridiculously cheap from a variety of places! You would think all these things would be cause for celebration. But no, war is a harrowing exercise in futility and despair and, given Tripwire's dedication to accuracy, they've marked the occasion with a thoroughly bleak trailer.



It's okay, we can fix this. Just mute the video and load up something far more appropriate for a modern game trailer. Thank heavens, I am now emotionally detached enough to continue.

The four included maps are picked from the winners of Tripwire's recent mapping contest. Admittedly this means that they were all previously available on the Steam Workshop, but it's nice to see Tripwire officially supporting their community. Plus it's handy for people too lazy to click a single subscribe button.

The free weekend coincides with an 85% off discount, both of which should run until Sunday. Despite this, it's not the cheapest place to get the game - both Red Orchestra 2 and the original Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 are available as part of a pay-what-you-want deal in the Humble Bundle weekly sale. Pay over $2.90 and you'll also get Tripwire's enjoyable zombie co-op shooter Killing Floor.