Fans of charming physics simulation games like bridge-construction game Poly Bridge may have something new to wrap their brains (and support cables) around. Carried Away, now in Early Access, is a sim about constructing chair lifts and gondolas to shepherd skiers up to the tops of the slopes. You can even control your little skiers at times to guide them over the jumps you build, and in addition to several goal-driven campaigns there's a sandbox mode where you can design your own mountains and challenges.
Of course, that's all easier said than done.
Construction is, in theory, very simple. Using anchor points, build lift towers with planks, logs, ropes, and supports, and connect the base to the exit point with a lift cable. Then, start the simulation and see if your skiers make it to the top (after which they'll ski back down). There are obstacles like trees that can get in the way, snow-making machines that can blow skiers around in circles, and the structural integrity of your construction, of course, may simply not be up to snuff.
As with other physics-based building sims, half the fun of Carried Away is in failure. When your carefully (or hastily) constructed tower begins to strain and shudder and collapse, spilling your skiers violently to the ground or into trees and rocks, it can be just as satisfying and fun as when you safely and competently lift them to the top. It's also easy to jump back and forth between construction mode and the simulation, so making adjustments, or starting over completely, just takes a second.
There's also a lot of enjoyment when part of your construction comes crashing down and yet you still manage to pass the level. Above, a set of my logs snapped but the ropes and cables both held, and my skiers still managed to exit the lift safely. Sure, it's a mess and probably scared my guests half to death, but they got to the top. Score!
You will also be called upon to build bridges and jumps, so your skiers can cross gaps and chasms. Once you've done it, you can control your skiers as well, helping them hunch down and then lift off at the appropriate moment to boost their jumps. Again, easier said than done. Below, you can see I haven't quite figured out how to best build jumps, nor guide my skiers across them.
There are currently about 50 levels in Carried Away, and in the 6 to 12 months in Early Access planned, developer Huge Calf Studios plans to add around 50 more, along with features like snowboarders, mountain bikers, and bombs. Bombs? Bombs.
What I've played so far of Carried Away has been an enjoyable time and, as I said, equally fun when succeeding or failing. You'll find it in Early Access on Steam for $9, with a note that when the game is complete, the developer plans to raise the price.
If you've never got round to WW2 multiplayer shooter Day of Infamy, or just fancy trying a new game without shelling out a penny, then you're in luck. It's having a free long weekend that starts tomorrow and lasts until Monday.
Why should you care? Well, because it's pretty darn good. It's a standalone rework of Insurgency, the teamwork-focused FPS that satisfied our itchy trigger fingers in 2014. Infamy came out this March and offers crosshair-less, class-based trench warfare with artillery strikes and objective-based maps. You can read Tyler's impressions of it here.
It's double XP throughout the weekend, so new players should unlock new classes quickly. The free trial also coincides with the release of a new map, Brittany, and a new tutorial mission.
It's currently £14.99/$19.99 on Steam, which is where you'll want to go for the free weekend.
Valve's next TF2 update is going to be a biggie, overhauling some of the multiplayer shooter's most iconic weapons and fixing items that have been unbalanced for years. When Valve announced the changes in June it didn't say when the update was due. After a blog post from the developer yesterday we still don't have a precise date, but we do have a much better idea.
"We're putting the finishing touches on a mammoth new update, and it'll be shipping in the very near future, we promise. How near? Well, very. Imminent. Not this week imminent, but you know. Really soon."
Hmm. The language suggests that it could arrive later this month. I really hope so, because it's the first TF2 update for a while that I'm actually excited about. There's tweaks across the board but some classes, such as the Scout or Spy, are getting a lot of attention (the Scout's triple jump-enabling Atomizer bat is now much less viable, for example), while others like the Demoman are being left mostly alone.
You can read more about the changes in Valve's "sneak peak".
Every player will have a different view of the planned changes, but personally I'm looking forward to a nerf to the Spy's Dead Ringer, a cloaking device that players use to feign death that is really frustrating to play against. Ammo kits and dispensers will no longer fill the device's meter, so Spies won't be able to use it as often.
How do you think the changes will impact the game?
In the Lord of the Rings universe, Shelob takes the form of a huge spider, an evil entity operating outside of Sauron's influence. She's grassroots evil, a simple symbol for something that isn't nice to look at and even worse when she does everyday spider stuff. Webs? Gross. Eating flies? I prefer kale. All those eyes? No thanks.
In Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Shelob crawls out in spider form, turns into a fine black mist, and takes the shape of a beautiful woman in a slim-fitting black dress. No more webs, no more bug food, and six fewer eyes. How is it that such an iconic, grotesque, all-powerful entity in the Lord of the Rings mythos has been reduced to a human with a refined taste for JCPenney’s top rack? Selling a game that features a big spider as a leading character on the box can’t be easy, but of all the creative solutions possible, even of all the possible human interpretations, a sexy evening dinner party outfit is a bit predictable, regardless of any developer claims about "exploring her character."
But it also made us wonder, if Shelob can just get sexy out of nowhere, then what about the other creatures of Middle-earth? Why should they be left unsexy? So here we present a list of equally unnecessary but also oddly sexy adaptations to be made to Tolkien’s bestiary.
Nazgirls
According to Aragorn, the Nazgul, or Ringwraiths, were "once men, great kings of men." Cool story, Strider, but not a sexy one. Why can't the Nazgul be once women, and also still women? Sexy women! Instead of being corrupted by the nine rings given to them by Sauron, what if instead they just kept it tight and got nice tans? Rather than riding winged Fell Beasts, they could drive around in hot sports cars, pulling up outside movie premieres and stepping out in high heels to the clatter of flashbulbs. And when they stab Frodo at Weathertop, they could all be wearing nice tops instead of those torn and tattered cloaks (gross!).
Watcher in the Hot tub
Guardian of the West-door of Moria, the Watcher is a misunderstood creature. All the time it gets dwarves paddling at the water’s edge curious about ‘tentacle stuff’ but the Watcher has to stop and explain (and bash and eat) to the dwarf that it just wants to watch. If the Watcher could move somewhere sexier, like a hot tub, the bath adults share and leave on for hours at a time, and if the Watcher could smoke a cigarette and become its true self, the soft glow of an ember in the darkness, then the Watcher would feel close to home. (Nothing will ever amount to the arrangement the Balrog and a village of cave trolls had with the Watcher back in the Second Age.)
Sauron's unblinking eye but with amazing lashes
According to some Reddit posts I googled, sustained, fiery, omnipotent eye contact is a key component of sex appeal. So what better way to keep people interested in Lord of the Rings than by giving the iconic orb a literal makeover? Frodo and Sam certainly wouldn’t have made it to Mount Doom in time with this unblinking babe casting its horrible (but tasteful) eyeshadow across all of Middle-earth. Wink. Whoops, there goes another village.
The Great Eagles, but wearing Great Jeans
Whenever the Great Eagles fly in to give hobbits or old wizards a bird ex machina escape route, it’s hard not to take note of how the sun bounces off their plumage, leaving their other side shrouded in darkness, a blinding silhouette streaking across the sky. I say we add one more bulge to that silhouette. Give our elegant birds some jeans worthy of their stature, and I’m talking nice jeans, a good brand like Levis but custom Levis with raw denim. Wrap ‘em tight too, tight enough to warp their distinct creeeee into something a bit more strained, like the jeans are so tight they hurt, but at the same time they feel so good.
Balls-rog
It went by Balls-rog in the First Age—the sweet sex tricks it once pulled off with that whip! Ball taps! Ball pulls! Ball slams! What an age. Back then, the Balrog had a famous catchphrase, and hearing it now really shows how much things have changed in the corrupted primordial spirit monster sex community. "Oh baby you can pass," just doesn’t carry much weight these days. Thanks a lot, Gandalf.
Sexy Smaug is just Brad Pitt from Fight Club (with horns)
If Shelob can take human form, why can't Smaug? Like any good weredragon, Smaug in human form would spend all his time in human form shirtless, to show off his impeccable abs. Smoking cigarettes (sexily) would be a stand-in for breathing fire. In other words, Smaug would just be Brad Pitt circa Fight Club, but with some some cute horns on his head.
Also acceptable, for Smaug in human form: Brad Pitt circa Troy. The point is, Brad Pitt should've played Smaug in The Hobbit films instead of Benedict Cumberbatch, whose abs aren't even close to being dragon-worthy.
Mom Bombadil — a MEMILF (middle-earth Mom I'd like to, you know)
Just change up Mom Tom’s lyrics and call it a day.
Hop along, my little friends, up the Kissywindle!Mom's going on ahead candles for to kindle.Down west sinks the Sun: soon you will be groping.When the night-shadows fall, then the kiss-door will open,Out of the window-pants light will twinkle yellow.Kiss the alder rack! Kiss the allegory pillow!Fear neighter foot nor boob! Mom goes on before you.Hey now! merry dol! We'll be waiting for you!
Ents
Is it possible to have wood if you are wood? I asked my philosophy 101 professor the same question and I wasn’t allowed to come to class anymore. Nietzsche turned up jack-all too (overrated!). In my personal research, I’ve simply deduced that Tolkien's gentle, wise treemen just need to carve some big knockers and/or six-packs onto their trunks and grow tiny little moss swimsuits around their treeparts. (As the oldest beings in Middle-earth, you know they’re ‘experienced’, too.) Only then will they be sexy enough for Shadow of War’s sexy take on Peter Jackson’s somewhat sexy interpretation of the beloved, distinctly not-all-that-sexy world of Middle-earth.
Other sexy suggestions
Sam GamsThe One Ring could have a nice diamond on itDwarfs, but shaved all smoothStrider? I hardly knew 'erThe two towers, touchingWere-worms, because, you know
Evan: Reddit threads like "Holy shit, the loot boxes are out of control" (7,200 upvotes) are popping up on a daily basis, and resentment of paid rewards feels like it's at an all-time high. I don't think it's any sudden trend, it's just that time of the year when 'big' games are releasing in clumps from publishers that will have noticed that Activision Blizzard made $3.6 billion from in-game content in 2016. How do we feel about it?
Wes: I think the fact that loot boxes have crept their way into singleplayer games is what has so many people mad. Now they're everywhere, and they threaten to make videogames samey in a way that depresses me. When I sit down to play a game, I don't want to feel like I'm using a 'product.' In Overwatch I'm trying to absorb myself in the intensity of a competitive shooter, focusing on the flow of aiming and dodging. Or I'm trying to immerse myself in rich storytelling in a game like The Witcher 3. Or I'm obsessing over earning gold medals in every race in Burnout Paradise, because I want to see my skill rewarded with an expanding stable of cool cars.
The point is, the way I engage with all of those games is totally different, and the way they're designed is totally different. They should be, because there's no one-size-fits-all solution for how earning rewards in a game should work.
James: I’m with you there, Wes. Loot boxes often stand in for more interesting reward systems. Take Destiny 2, for example. Its loot boxes, Bright Engrams, are rewarded for either earning a set amount of experience or by spending money. They primarily reward cosmetic items, or items that don’t drastically affect character progression. The exception is weapon mods, but that entire system is awful and worth its own piece. I’m always excited to decrypt Bright Engrams when they drop and I’m never starved of what they reward, but earning them doesn’t require performing any specific feats or playing particular modes. Loot boxes end up diluting reward systems, transforming in-game economies and personal milestones into arbitrary, boring tests of persistence.
Evan: It was upsetting that Bluehole went back on its pledge to not include loot boxes until after release.
Samuel: I agree that their presence in singleplayer games is the worst thing, here. With multiplayer games, there are associated costs with running a game after release where loot boxes might mitigate that, but let's face it—for singleplayer games it's only about profit. Even if we, as critics, say 'this game isn't affected by them', it's far from an endorsement. Having to explain that, and for consumers to learn what role they play in each game, is a problem developers and publishers have created. I don't want loot boxes to exist in singleplayer games at all. Any developer or publisher that chooses to add them to a singleplayer game surely knows that they're courting this type of drama.
Loot boxes make games homogenous
Wes: Right, one of the great joys of playing videogames is discovering the boundaries and rules of an original world. Even in the shared language of games—if you understand Mario you'll also understand Super Meat Boy—the limits of what you can and can't do and the logic of the world is always different.
Loot boxes fundamentally impact that freedom of design, because some game system will have to be designed around randomized payouts with tiers of scarcity. That doesn't mean games with loot boxes can't be fun, but I'm worried about the erosion of creativity that could come from more and more games being designed around a mandatory loot box core.
I think a lot of people would agree that that the loot box goldrush is now regularly straying into gouging.
Tim
Tyler: Totally. I really enjoy Absolver's random clothing drops, for instance. I had to grind for my most fashionable masks and boots, but grinding in Absolver is playing the game—fighting other players and winning—so it's what I'm there to do anyway. If you see a player wearing a bunch of cool stuff, you know they've done a healthy tour of the arena. But if you could just buy loot boxes with a guaranteed rare item? Fancy clothes wouldn't mean squat. It would totally change the game. If I'm wearing a mask that dropped after a tough fight with another player, I remember that story. I don't remember popping open Overwatch loot boxes. So loot boxes aren't just something you can tack onto a game without fundamentally changing it.
Tim: I'm even less sympathetic to Destiny 2's Bright Engrams than James is. Game director Luke Smith mounted this defence of the new gear shader system, and while he was right to say you'll end up flush with them, what he failed to add was that those would be the shitty brown ones, and most of the nice shiny stuff would be gated in the boxes. Having played Destiny for three years in advance of its arrival on PC later this month, it's been fascinating and disheartening to watch that game's microtransaction store evolve and spread. At first the items really were purely cosmetic, and limited in scope, so many players passed it off as entirely optional. These days you can buy 'fireteam medallions' which boost your chances of getting loot drops. If it isn't pay to win, it isn't far off it.
The same goes for The Division, which has struggled from a Saharan sized content drought that threatened to kill the game entirely, and yet the developers have still found the resources to introduce loot boxes. It sucks to have the endgame of a looter-shooter reliant on either getting lucky with drops or dipping into your wallet. I get that we're just talking about outfits to play dress up with (The Division's boxes mostly contain shoes, winter jackets and lurid weapon skins), but when there isn't much else to grind for, the feeling of being pressured to pay becomes more pronounced.
James: Worse, loot boxes in games built around the loot grind are especially dangerous. The Division, dumb as its stat-boosting backpacks are, runs along a dopamine track already. Throw monetized incentives into a vulnerable playerbase and I feel like I get the right to name anyone making the calls exploitative. I need my blue scarves, Tim! More than water or light or other colors of scarves!
Where do you draw the line?
Tim: I think a lot of people would agree that that the loot box goldrush is now regularly straying into gouging. And the irony is it's the most dedicated players who're likely to pay up, but at the eventual cost to the developer of a weakening relationship with that base. It's no wonder there's so much talk (and often accurately) of toxicity and entitlement in gaming communities, when too often players are treated like mug punters, there to be exploited by data analysts with MBAs.
Bo: I think that's a critical point, Tim. While I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that loot boxes are a form of gambling, there's no denying that they are designed to appeal to addictive behavior, which we've delved into the science of. So at what point do loot boxes cross from being a healthy way to inject some additional content to being an exploitative system designed to generate as much money as possible?
To me, there are three cardinal rules of loot boxes: they should only exist in multiplayer games, all loot should be cosmetic, and either they or everything in them can also be obtained through non-monetary means.
Tim: We both play Hearthstone, Bo, and I know you don't spend anything on it, which is admirable, I must have thrown many 100s of dollars Blizzard's way by now. I tend to buy enough packs to build most competitive decks, which as our recent report detailed, has become substantially more expensive over time. I'm more phlegmatic about packs, though, because I feel like the whole model is integral to the way the game works and has been since day one. Certainly, other card games are (much) more generous, but at least I'm going in with open eyes. I know what the drop rate is, I know how much I'll likely need to spend in order to compete, and this is how the game has always been.
What's much more jarring to me is seeing loot boxes just jammed into every triple-A game because, hey, it worked for those guys so why shouldn't it for us. It just looks incredibly opportunistic. It's hard to conceive of a game like Hearthstone without some sort of microtransaction model. Star Wars Battlefront 2? Not so much.
Bo: Hearthstone absolutely is pay-to-win. But as you say, Tim, at least you know that going in.
Tim: I pulled a golden Rotface from a pack this weekend, Bo. I ask you who the real winner is here?
Tyler: Tim, you're right that there's a clear difference when it comes to Battlefront 2. It's a game about shooting, and the Star Cards just buff to your abilities, giving you an advantage in a game otherwise about movement and map awareness and aim. EA says it's about "creative" customization, and maybe there will be some really fun builds, but are the players I'm using them against going to think they're fun? And what if I don't pick up any cards for my favorite class? How much will I have to grind, or pay, to be creative? Right now nothing about Battlefront's loot boxes seems fun to me.
Samuel: GTA Online's Shark Cards get a bad rap every time I cover the game, and some of the recent vehicles in that game are now absurdly expensive if bought with real money. That said, in that game you always know what you're paying for, and if you're prepared to grind down, you can also buy them with in-game cash. It's the random element of loot crates that I dislike. I would never buy one on that basis. I already lived through Pokemon cards in the late '90s, thanks.
...But are loot boxes keeping game prices down?
Evan: OK—we're not gonna solve loot boxes in a single article, but someone address this popular counter-argument: loot boxes, season passes, and DLC are the things that are keeping the cost of your games at $60 or less. Games were $50 and $60 twenty years ago—adjusted for inflation, that's about $90 today.
Games cost more than ever to develop, and cost less than ever to purchase. Aren't the rich players essentially paying for everyone else's fun, and the continued updates to games like Overwatch? Isn't that better than us paying $90 USD for a big-budget game?
Tim: That's one of the great defences of loot boxes, that they enable developers to maintain a stream of post-release content and events. I say be very wary of that line. Bungie invoked it around the time the Eververse store launched, and I saw plenty of players think that we'd be getting actual new missions and such as a result of whales throwing down cash for emotes. But of course they never materialised outside of paid-for DLC expansions. Instead we got underwhelming week-long events like The Festival of the Lost and Crimson Doubles, which like the loot boxes themselves, were largely cosmetic. I actually have little problem with the notion of selling stuff as a game's life extends.
Wes: I'm sympathetic to how many millions of dollars triple-A games cost to make these days, and I hate the common story of a studio closing after missing sales expectations or getting layoffs after a game ships, regardless. But you know what? Those things happen anyway, with or without loot boxes. That speaks to a larger problem than loot boxes can solve. And I'm not buying that it's do-or-die for the publishers who decide how they monetize their games. Activision Blizzard made $6.6 billion in revenue this past year, and like you said, Evan, $3.6 billion of which was from in-game purchases. EA makes more than a billion dollars per quarter. Ubisoft is similarly massive.
Of course companies exist to make money, but that also makes loot boxes fair game for criticism. Loot boxes aren't about survival; they're about profit. Publishers choose to make their games bigger and more expensive year after year. Funding that escalation with a payment system that triggers the same impulses as gambling wasn't inevitable or unavoidable; it was a choice.
Chris: Something else to keep in mind: people love buying stuff. Games wouldn't have loot boxes if players didn't shell out for them en masse, same as Day 1 DLC and Season Passes and expensive Gold Editions with figurines and posters and all sorts of other useless crap that we collectively roll our eyes about. But they still get bought, because people love buying stuff. Complaints about Early Access games have been around since Early Access was invented, and what's still popular? Early Access games. Pre-ordering digital games is pointless (they won't run out), risky (the game may suck), and much-bemoaned (seriously, you probably shouldn't pre-order games) but what's often at the top of Steam's top sellers? A pre-order.
Samuel: Rocket League is an interesting example, and one where I see the logic for a $20/£15 game. Everyone gets free, refreshed content, and the crates are all cosmetic. The money helps support the costs of running the game and their esports initiatives. After 100 hours, I can't argue with that, since I'd never spend a penny on them myself.
There's still more to unpack on this topic, and we'll keep discussing and reporting on loot boxes over the coming months. How do you feel about them?
Daybreak Game Company and Twin Galaxies teamed up earlier this year for the for first H1Z1: King of the Kill team-based pro tournament, with a $300,000 prize pool, including $180,000 for the winning team. Apparently that event was a success, because today they announced an even bigger venture in the form of the H1Z1 Pro League, which will feature 15 teams with a base player salary of $50,000, a "comprehensive Player Bill of Rights," and league-wide revenue sharing.
"Our goal with the H1Z1 Pro League is to create a world-class experience worthy of our incredibly competitive community,” Daybreak's H1Z1 general manager Anthony Castoro said. “We chose to partner with Twin Galaxies because they bring a unique and compelling vision for how H1Z1 can reshape the world of professional esports, and they share our core value of putting players first.”
The H1Z1 Pro League is set to get underway early next year, with 15 teams of five players each competing in 75-player battles over two ten-week splits, followed by finals slated for late 2018. Interestingly, Daybreak said in the announcement that "there will be no fees or buy-in costs for teams to take part in the league": Instead, the lineup will be selected by way of an application process that will begin later this fall. How exactly that will work wasn't made clear in the announcement, but it's quite a contrast to Blizzard's Overwatch League, which also has 15 teams and a $50k base player salary—and a rumored $20 million franchise fee.
The teams taking part in the H1Z1 Pro League will be announced in early 2018, just ahead of the start of the first season. Teams interested in taking part can attended a "private H1Z1 Pro League briefing" on October 20 at TwitchCon in Long Beach, California. There's no mention of an online option but you can RSVP if you'd like to attend (or, one would assume, ask them about connecting online) at H1PL@twingalaxies.com.
The PC version of Final Fantasy 15 is set to become the definitive edition of the game. It will boast improved graphics, a new first-person mode and support for 8K resolutions. You'd think those add-ons would make development difficult—not so, according to game director Hajime Tabata. In fact, he says it was "more than 100 times" easier crafting the PC edition than the console version before it.
The team only started working on the PC edition this year but it's due to come out in early 2018, and Tabata told MCV: “The console version, which required reconstruction from the very start for both the game itself and the engine, was more than 100 times more difficult."
Tabata also revealed that the team is working hard to make the game run better on low-end PCs. “In entering the global PC market, it’s a requirement that games can be played on a wide range of specs,” he said. “At this stage, FFXV is at the high end of these settings, and we are in the process of seeing how well we can push things out on a lower spec."
He expanded on the reasons for the addition of a first-person mode, too. It's to help attract players that usually only play first-person games on PC. Plus, it will bring a "freshness" to the action. There's lots of work still left to do though: the mode is only half-complete, Tabata revealed.
"We have only reached about 50 per cent [completion] on this mode, but we feel the gameplay has a certain freshness to it and it’s been well-received among those in the development team. In providing this mode, we needed to make some large adjustments, like the player character’s VFX, displayed animations and camera movement. Even now, we’re still making small, daily adjustments.”
Overall, Tabata seems dead set on making the PC version, which will ship with all DLC and Steam Workshop support, the best version of the JRPG. "Players will expect the game to have evolved because we are providing a higher quality depiction than the current consoles out there. If we are able to meet such demands, then it gives meaning to doing this in the first place.”
I can't wait for the next game from Eric ‘ConcernedApe’ Barone's, the creator of the brilliant, gentle farming sim Stardew Valley. Details about his future plans are sparse but during a Reddit Q&A he shed some light on his next project's setting, revealing that it will take place "on the same planet" as Stardew Valley, "although it's not a sequel or expansion in any way".
Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that we should expect another pleasant countryside backdrop. Presumably, not everywhere on the planet is as idyllic as Pelican Town, where Stardew Valley takes place. Plus, the next game could be set in a different time period with different circumstances.
Barone is keeping his cards close to his chest about what the next game will involve, telling users that he doesn't want to pile on the pressure caused by premature hype. Plus it sounds like, whatever it is, is a while off. What he does say, though, is that it will build on a genre or style of game that he feels has not yet fully reached its potential, in the same way Stardew Valley did with Harvest Moon-style farming games.
"I am thinking of approaching my next game with a similar mindset to Stardew Valley—take a style of game that was never fully realized (or that changed trajectories, leaving unexplored possibilities), and carry on the tradition in my own weird way."
But away from his next project, will there be a sequel to Stardew Valley? "I would consider making a Stardew Valley 2 eventually... but not for a bit," he said.
The rise and rise of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds continues. Last month it smashed the Steam record for the most concurrent players, surpassing Dota 2's previous best of 1.3 million, and today it hit an even bigger milestone: 2 million concurrent users. Staggering.
The Early Access battle royale shooter hit 2,016,498 players earlier today, according to Steam's official stats page. Just under 14 million players are on Steam right now (and today's peak will likely be just above that), which basically means that one in seven users on the platform are locked into PUBG.
The game has also broken the 15 million owners barrier, data from SteamSpy shows, and is well on its way to 16 million. The graph below shows a definite uptick in people buying it over the past few days:
Developer Bluehole announced yesterday that the reset of the game's leaderboards, which heralds the start of a new season, would be delayed by a week. The previous season finished yesterday, but the reset won't happen until October 17 because the team are worried about performance issues. Basically, that means the results of any games before then will not be recorded for the leaderboards.
"Our concurrent users have been increasing rapidly, and we are genuinely concerned that we may not be able to provide you with a comfortable and seamless gaming experience by starting the new season immediately," Bluehole said on a Steam post apologising for the delay.
The mortal empires update is a massive free campaign update that will be available to owners of Total War: Warhammer and Total War: Warhammer 2. It will unite the factions and territories from both games into one colossal smash-up. I chatted to game director Ian Roxburgh and lead designer Jim Whitson to find out how it will all work.
PC Gamer: How would you sum up the mortal empires update for Total War: Warhammer 2?
Ian Roxburgh: Effectively it is the combination of the content from both Warhammer 1 and Warhammer 2 in one huge world. All of the races and a lot of the new features from Warhammer 2, including the universal territory capture, the ruins, searching the sea for treasure, all of these features and all of the new races and content put into one single massive mortal empires campaign map. We really are seeing the combinatin of the content from both the games in the biggest map we've done. It's this huge, huge sandbox campaign with about 35 different start positions, literally hundreds of hours of potential gameplay.
The thing that we're particularly pleased about is that we're able to deliver this as part of the plan for the trilogy to our fans for free. It's the most hours of brand new gameplay that anyone would get out of a 'freeLC', so we're really pleased, and it's part of the ongoing plan of how we're going to realise all of this Warhammer content throughout the trilogy.
Will it be a whole new map, or both maps connected together?
Roxburgh: It's both areas of landmass, but we've changed them slightly for design reasons primarily, and a for technical reasons as well. There are way more regions and places to conquer than any of the maps we've done previously, but we've played around a bit with the landmasses to make the gameplay better and more refined, because this campaign really is more about these races from different parts of the world mingling and fighting against each other, so that you'd have the high elves fighting against the empire or the vampire counts or something.
We've designed the new map to be optimal in terms of gameplay with such a massive vast area, so some areas will be slightly smaller than their equivalent on the vortex map. For gameplay reasons that's desirable for us. Think of the area that covers the old world, that's already very densely populated with lots and lots of content and DLC as well from the last year or so. We wanted to make sure that the new areas of map that we're adding into this whole world, such as the new world stuff—Lustria, the Southlands—has got that same intensity of gameplay and is designed to help you to mingle with races in other parts of the map as well. If Lustria was exactly the same as it was in the vortex then you'd still spend potentially hundreds of turns just fighting in that one area of the map. We've played around with it and adjusted it to maximise the design of the gameplay. If we threw too many new things in the end turn times would just become too long, so we're balancing up all these things and creating the perfect mix, in our eyes, of the gameplay and the design and all the content in there.
How will objectives change in the new campaign?
Jim Whitson: We don't have the vortex that we saw in Total War: Warhammer 2. Instead the races have got a wide variety of victory conditions that they're trying to meet, and they are tailored to suit the flavour of each of those races. Ian's mentioned the sheer wealth of content that we've got now with the content from both of the games and the DLCs and 'freeLCs', so one of those victory conditions for each of the races, instead of turtling in your starting position and really maxing out there and not really going out and experiencing the rest of this vast world one of the victory conditions actually forces you to go out into that world.
Playing as Empire you'll have a victory condition that takes you to Lustria, another one that will take you to Ulthuan and so on. It's really about encouraging the player to experience the scale of the content that's available there.
What sort of objectives will they have other than 'go to this part of the world', will you be fighting to capture a certain number of territories, anything more exotic?
Whitson: There are 'capture certain number of territories', there are more exotic ones. The Chaos invasion that you saw in the first game, we've tweaked the gameplay for that, so that's present as well. There's a whole range of things, and as I say they're all tailored to each of the races.
There may be objectives to capture a certain amount of settlements from each area of the map so that you can fine tune and just take out a capital of the enemy race to fulfill the victory condition, rather than just have 50 regions by the end of it or something. As Jim said there it's designed to encourage you to go out into the world and mingle with all those new races because that really is what this is about. We don't want people to sit on one small landmass and be able to win the game that way.
With all those factions on one map, are you concerned about balancing between factions?
Roxburgh: Yes, obviously we have to be concerned about that right from the beginning of the project, and to be honest we've been that way with Warhammer 1 and Warhammer 2 and it's no different with this. We have built new systems right from the beginning of this entire trilogy and dedicated more time on the project from the beginning to get this balance right.
As you can imagine the nature of the asymmetry of the design of each of these races makes that even more complicated. We have internal systems here for testing and balancing. We get external feedback as well before release and we also feedback post-release and continually evolve and tweak as we release new DLC and new patches and stuff.
This is part of a series of free updates that will stretch to the next game?
Roxburgh: We've always wanted to be able to release content beyond release that enriches and refines the world and fine-tunes the world that was available at release. Within that whole plan this idea of 'freeLC' is something we really wanted to do, to give our fans back as much as we possibly could for their loyalty for buying and enjoying the games. If you think of how many hundreds of hours of gameplay this particular freeLC provides it's vast. From our point of view as developers it's so nice for us to feel that we're making something that we can give to people to free because we feel like that's real value for money
There will be more 'freeLC' coming because it's something we really like to do. You saw the scale of Bretonnia at the end of Warhammer 1, and we'll continue to do that as much as we can. When we finally release Warhammer 3 you'll see the content from all three games combined in an even bigger mortal empires equivalent campaign. Part of the whole plan for this trilogy from the beginning was to do exactly this.
Do you have any plans for more paid DLC for Total War: Warhammer 2 in terms of factions and other updates?
Roxburgh: Yeah. We'll announce stuff officially in the future, but it's the same kind of blueprint for Warhammer 1. We'll be continually releasing some paid DLC to pad out the world, but people who don't buy that DLC will still see the benefit of it by seeing this new content coming into the game that they're playing already. Everybody will benefit from that for free anyway, but if people want to pay for certain bits to allow that new content to be playable then that's fine as well. It'll be the same kind of blueprint we applied to Warhammer 1.
How do you decide what you're going to charge for and what you're going to add for free?
Roxburgh: Well, it's a corporate decision as well. I mean, there's a lot of people involved in that so to be honest with you. From our development point of view the more we release free the better, but obviously at the same time we have to be able to generate revenue to keep making the new content for the future.
It's about finding that balance, and it's not something that designers decide on their own, it's very much a company decision, so it has to work because we need to generate the revenue to make future content. At the same time, as I said, the amount of stuff we've been giving out for free as a result of this plan has been really gratifying for us and we hope everyone appreciates that.
Games Workshop has moved on from the old world in their fiction and model ranges. How much to they still collaborate to maintain the old world's authenticity?
Roxburgh: Right from the beginning we've had a really, really good working relationship. Because we've genuinely wanted to maintain the attitude we have with history from the beginning, which is: here's history and we want to recreate that accurately. We've taken that approach with Games Workshop's IP. We don't want to recreate or redesign any of the stuff you've done, what you've done is great, we want to take that and encapsulate that in a Total War format. We want to be true to the IP, we want to realise your IP in our game.
There's never really been clashes or anything like that because we've all wanted the same thing. We've been able to do stuff possibly a bit more with things like Norsca because it's not the latest thing that Workshop are working on, but to be honest with you they've been more than happy for us to do the things we're doing and there's not really been any issues there.
Whitson: I think the two franchsises are such a perfect match for each other that it makes that process easy. As designers we might have ideas for things that we'd like to do with the game but equally when you get down to reading those army books and so on there's so much stuff in there that immediately the ideas start coming out, and you're not straining to find stuff to put in the games that would go well in a Total War game because they are such a good match for each other.
Is there an ETA for the update?
Roxburgh: Er, soon! Sorry about that. Very imminently I can say. We want to make sure it's all completely balanced and fine tuned as best it can but it is very soon, so I'm sure you'll be playing it imminently. We're not talking months or so, we're talking faster than that.
