Jun 13, 2023

Aimlabs first ranked season is officially live now!

Aimlabs - Romy

Ranked Seasons

Ranked Seasons are a new way to track your progression and compete against others in Aimlabs. Each season will feature new tasks that cover the three core aiming movements. Play the ranked tasks, climb the leaderboards, and earn in-game rewards while setting your eyes on becoming the world’s best aimer!

Red Bull Ready Check

In partnership with Red Bull, Aimlabs’ Ranked Season 1 will act as a qualifier for Red Bull Ready Check, a gaming competition designed to find the best aimer across all First Person Shooters. Between June 12th and July 9th, players located in the United States and who are 18+ of age have the potential to qualify to Red Bull’s in-person Ready Check event in Dallas, Texas on July 29th, 2023. In order to qualify, players will need to place in the top 6 on the overall US leaderboard once the qualification ends on July 9th at 11:59 pm ET.

Qualifiers for Red Bull Ready Check are officially live!!! Head here to start playing! Players who qualify will be reached out via their Aimlabs registered email address starting on July 10th. For more information on the Red Bull Ready Check, click here!

The Rewards

Play all nine of the new Ranked Season tasks to get an overall rank and earn the season-exclusive Get Ready Pack containing a themed 9mm and Shadow skin! Additionally, you can earn:

New rank badges and seasonal titles to display on your profile in-game.
At the end of the season, the top 1,000 aimers receive the exclusive player title S1 Challenger.
At the end of the season, the top 10 aimers receive the legendary S1 Champion player title.
The top 6 contenders based in the United States receive an invite to the in-person Red Bull Ready Check event in Dallas, Texas in July 2023! Terms and conditions apply.

The Tasks

Each task was thoughtfully and carefully designed to measure specific aim mechanics that are found across various FPS games. See how each task can be helpful for your favorite game:

Category: Flicking

Microclick - Train your precision flicks with small stationary targets. Flick fast between targets, trying to land as close to the target as possible in one smooth motion.
Bounceclick - Train your click timing with medium-sized targets bouncing vertically. Targets are easiest to hit at the peak of their bounce, so place your crosshair near the top of their jump.
Floatclick - Train your flicks & click timing with evasive targets of varying sizes floating along the x & y axis. Targets are easiest to hit in between their directional change.

Category: Tracking

Glidertrack - Train your overall tracking with targets gliding diagonally. 6 targets spawn one by one, each with increasing difficulty based on size/speed, and points per hit increase with target difficulty.
Smoothtrack - Train your precision tracking with targets moving smoothly along the x & y axis. Focus on making smooth movements when the target changes direction, and avoid over correcting when trying to get back on target.
Veertrack - Train your reactive tracking with targets moving evasively on the x and z axis around you. Prioritize hitting the target in-between its directional changes, and avoid over-correcting when trying to get back on target - stay smooth and controlled.

Category: Switch

Jiggleswitch - Train your target switching with medium sized targets moving evasively on the x axis. Targets are easiest to hit in-between their directional change, but actively aim towards targets instead of letting them fall into your crosshair.

Verticalswitch - Train your speed target switching with large targets moving up and down the y-axis. Focus on speed due to the large target size and short time to kill, and avoid switching off targets before they are fully killed, and flick fast between targets.

Floatswitch - Train your target switching with evasive targets of varying sizes floating along the x & y axis. Avoid switching off targets before they are fully killed, and keep a steady rhythm by smoothly transitioning to tracking after flicking to a target.

FAQ

How can I participate in Red Bull Ready Check?

Play all 9 ranked tasks to get on the Overall leaderboard
Participants must be 18 years or older, and a US citizen
You must compete in-person for the finals
Full Rules here: https://win.gs/RedBullReadyCheck

How do I unlock a rank?

Play tasks in each of the 3 core aiming movement categories in the Season to earn rank points
Rank points range from 1 to 1000
Your overall Aimlabs rank is based on the average of your rank points
Earn more rank points by getting new high scores in tasks

Why can’t I see my rewards?

You must play all 9 tasks at least once to earn the seasonal reward
Claim the reward on the Missions tab of the Ranked Season hub
Some rewards are not distributed until the end of the season

New Play Menu

Finding the perfect training experience for you has never been easier. With our brand new Play Menu, easily navigate between the Training Tab, Ranked Home (brand new), Aimlabs+, 1V1 & Events.

If you aren't already following us, check out @aimlab on Twitter & Instagram for more awesome events, memes, and training tips. Don't forget you can report any bugs in-game and join us on Discord or check out the subreddit to let us know of any feature requests you have or just to come and hang out with the community & our devs!

Jun 13, 2023

June’s Sitrep

Onward - SyrinSong

Greetings Onward Players!

Did you catch our trailer in the Meta Gaming Showcase? In case you didn’t, you can check it out below. This month the Devs’ Desk will be going over the features that were shown off in the video as well as some other additions coming to Update 1.11.

Exciting stuff right? Some of these updates have been in the works for a long time and we are excited to get them to you. Did you also catch in the video that you won’t have to wait long for them? We are working hard on wrapping up some bug fixes and getting ready to release Update 1.11 on June 27th!

While you wait for the release, read on for additional details about the items that were showcased and other additional items coming with Update 1.11.

From the Devs’ Desks:

There are so many features we are excited to talk about that we didn’t know where to start! We decided to go with the order you see them in the video and add details along the way. Also included, towards the end, are new updates on things that weren't shown in the trailer.

New Weapons

The two new weapons that will be added to the game are the M240L (for MARSOC) and Ultimax 100 Mk 3 (for Volk).

M240L

- Belt fed heavy machine gun. High caliber 7.62. Punchy, aggressive, & heavy. The M240L is a medium machine gun that is found throughout the US military including Special Operations Forces. Firing from a disintegrating 75 round belt that is stored in the magazine pouch, the M240 series of machine guns have a reputation for stopping power and reliability. The M240L can be used in sustained-fire mode and used as an indirect fire area weapon.

Ultimax 100 Mk3

- Drum fed with mag release button. Intermediate 5.56 cartridge. Sleek, accurate, & mobile. It has a drop free 100 rounds drum, allowing for fast reloads. Has the charging handle on the left side of the receiver allowing for fast cycling of the bolt after inserting a fresh magazine, allowing for one of the fastest LMG reloads in the game.

You will be able to find these weapons under the Support class. Yes you read that right. These are the first new weapon additions for the support class since the game became available on PC in 2016. The support role provides sustained covering fire to keep enemy combatants pinned down as their squad advances and flanks.

These weapons can be used to suppress the enemy’s ability to return accurate fire, or to hamper the maneuver of the enemy’s assault element. They fix the enemy in position and isolate them by cutting off their avenues of reinforcement. Having more bullets allows them to provide cover while the rest of the team can flank a target and destroy it.

New Animations

This is a major feature you have been asking for, and we’ve been working on, for a long time. Getting leg movement working correctly in a VR game has taken a lot of work and iteration. When we were working on the animation we also wanted to improve how the characters moved overall.

In addition to the overhaul of the character animations, two additional changes have been made to the way your character will move. Onward’s gameplay has been focused on a slower, more tactical style vs a run and gun type system. Overall leaning towards a more realistic, to almost a fault, feeling than making the game easier for players. As different hardware devices were introduced we were challenged with how to properly balance the intended game design, hardware capability, and networked movement related concerns. It took a lot of research, development time, and testing to find the proper balance that we were happy with.

Overall player movement has been slowed down

We originally tried to implement an inertia system to address some of the community feedback around varying movement concerns. However, most of our testing feedback led to concerns about developing motion sickness. After additional evaluation of various gameplay styles and device compatibility it was decided that with the new animations a global slowdown of player movement speed would work best. It also suits the gameplay that Onward intends to portray. Now with proper player speeds the battlefields will feel much more immersive and fair while also addressing the frustration people perceive related to networked movement related issues.

Gun Weight has been added and will affect movement speed

When looking at the character movement with our intended gameplay design in mind, we wanted to expand on our goals of having realistic weapon handling. For this reason we have introduced gun weight to all weapons in the game. A weapon's weight will have a direct effect on your walking and sprinting speeds. This means that your weapon choices will now have additional impact on your overall strategy while playing during matches. For example, if you want to move quickly and be the one out in front, you will have more reason to select a submachine gun over a GPMG/LMG.

Revamped Shooting Range & Improved Killhouse

At any given time when you log into Onward and go to the lobby browser you can find pages of Shooting Range lobbies to join. We understand players use the Shooting Range for a variety of different play styles and training sessions. We wanted to enhance your time on the range by giving you more tools to help you improve your accuracy, reaction times, and strategies to further build your skills for the battlefield. Challenging your friends is also a great method to stay sharp and look for ways to make improvements to your tactics. The following updates have been made to achieve this:

Updated Range and Targets

The shooting range map will be extended to 600M. This allows for multiple new rows of further range targets. The new shot display on the Shooting Range will score player’s target shots based on things like accuracy, distance, and whether the target was moving. As shots are being fired, the display shows detailed scoring for each shot. Example image proved below.

Improved Killhouse

The Killhouse will be upgraded to be more interactive and will provide stats and a score for each run through based on how fast and accurate you are. A scoreboard outside will break down the scoring of your last Killhouse run and the top players in your lobby for both target shots and Killhouse runs. High scores are determined by accurate shots (center of mass or head shots), speed, and clear rate.

New Tent

The tent has always been your base of operations during game sessions. It’s where you set strategies with the team, prepare your loadout, and maybe even do a little trash talking with your opponents. We wanted to take the time to enhance the overall experience when in this space. Not just graphically either, we have also added additional functionality when inside the tent. We even brought back a version of an old interaction from back in the day.

Settings can be accessed from inside the Tent

- You will no longer have to exit the tent to make adjustments to your gameplay settings. The full settings menu will now be accessible and change will take place after you hit confirm.

Whiteboard Accessibility

- The whiteboard can now be dragged around throughout the tent for easier accessibility and placement. You click and hold the directions under the whiteboard to move the whiteboard throughout the tent environment. You can even turn the board a full 360.

Additional Features

There are a few other important updates that were not in the trailer, And we wanted to make sure you know these are coming as they will be bringing some additional quality of life to your game.

Updates to the Recoil System

- When reviewing the movement and weapons handling, we spent additional time evaluating the recoil system as well. Not only did we do some fixes, we included some updates as well. Balancing changes include non-foregrip recoil adjustments & Bipods have been updated to be more accurate. New additions to the recoil system include horizontal recoil and stance based recoil (crouching and prone will have advantages).

Full Auto

Semi Auto

Ability to simultaneously hold weapons in both hands

You will now be able to use both your hands to hold weapons at the same time. Functionally this may not be the best choice for gameplay as it will be very difficult to be accurate and balance holding two weapons. However, in a pinch grabbing your sidearm and not having to drop your primary could save lives.

New Watch Design

The graphics and overall look of the watch have been updated. The new design includes a compass and a more clear numbering system for directional callouts.

Additional hand movement settings

We have added the option in the settings menu to choose which controller you want to use for movement (dominant or non-dominant). This will be especially helpful for left handed players who have wanted to use the left controller for movement and haven’t been able to.

Community Center:

We saw a lot of you get really excited about some of the scenes in the trailer that premiered at the Meta Gaming Showcase. We have captured some of those iconic moments and have uploaded them for you to use as wallpapers for your computer. Check out the Media Page to view and download them.

Our community member Blxxn has been making some very informative videos to help teach people basic and advanced techniques for Onward. If you are a new player or looking to learn some advanced features during gameplay, make sure to check the full list of videos available on his YouTube page.

New Community made Custom Maps have been added to the Workshop area. As a reminder, once Update 1.11 is live you will be able to start seeing maps like these in the map voting scenes during tent map votes.

APEX HQ and Training Center by Kensi_APEX
This is the official map from the milsim APEX and represents their HQ and Training Center

Goryoukaku by Tarematsu
Marsoc is here to defeat the Volks who have taken over the Star Fortress.

NSWC_Base and NSWC_Base Night by Lejam009
NSWC_ Base is a permanent joint operations naval base built for the Naval Special Warfare Command and Project Mercenary, and MilSims alike! By incorporating elements from real military branches of the United States, this base acts as a tactical operations hub and naval port. Featuring revolutionary systems and aircraft, the base is fully equipped to suit the needs of the evolving units.

SWAT CAMP LEVEL 1 by SVCPanther (PC Only)
SWAT training in a challenging environment.

Container Heaven by Shh-Leo
Volk have stolen a high value payload stored inside a cargo container and are storing it in this warehouse Marsoc is here to take out the Volk.

Tanglewood & Tanglewood - Blackout by Bluega
Marsoc crash landed in a Volk controlled area, and there is a satellite that must be "Defused" for some reason. Despite being a satellite, we can only connect to it via bluetooth on our android 2.0 tablets. If it's not done within the next 6 minutes, might as well give up. Not worth the effort.

We were thrilled to see the positive reactions to these updates from the showcase and we are looking forward to getting them to you soon.

Brace for impact, later this month.

Jun 13, 2023

Discover Forza Motorsport’s New Car Building Career

Forza Motorsport - T10Yaachts

The Forza franchise has always been about falling in love with cars. Today on Forza Monthly we showed you the Builders Cup Career Mode, the new single player campaign in Forza Motorsport where you can fall in love with cars in an entirely new way.

The Builders Cup is a spiritual successor to our community favorite career modes from Forza Motorsport 3 and 4. It takes the magic of what made those games so special, modernizes it and genre-blends it with RPG progression. We like to think of it as a CarPG with three core pillars: competition, car progression, and car building.

Exciting automotive stories are at the heart of each series within the Builders Cup Career Mode. These are curated to be your gateway to discovering new cars you can truly fall in love with. See a car first on the showroom floor, get to know it by racing on the track, and then level it up and earn performance upgrades to build it into the ultimate track competitor.

This career experience has been designed to feel alive and fresh by evolving over time. That means new cars, tracks and series will be introduced into the Builders Cup after its release.

On Forza Monthly, with gameplay captured on Xbox Series X at 4K/60fps, we introduced the ‘Built for Sport’ series, featuring modern, compact sports car masterpieces like the 2020 Toyota GR Supra, the 2018 Porsche 718 Cayman GTS, the 2017 Alpine A110 and the 2023 Nissan Z. In each Builders Cup series, you will take a single car and level, build and race it on your way to the series victory.

Let’s take a closer look at the structure of the Builders Cup Career Mode, which includes Open Practice, a new Challenge the Grid system, a Featured Race, and our new car progression and upgrade systems.

OPEN PRACTICE

Open Practice is you, the car and the track. This is where you learn the character of a car and help it master each turn and apex. Your car will be stock at first – no upgrades and no tuning. Feel the car just as the manufacturer intended, like you drove it straight from the showroom floor onto the racetrack.

Notable HUD features include the target number of laps and lap time, Car Mastery and XP. These are your goals in Open Practice; every corner is its own objective. Your car earns XP and levels up by driving on the track, unlocking new upgrades. This is the heartbeat of Open Practice and a fundamental core gameplay loop of the new Forza Motorsport.

Track Mastery is a new skill-based system in Open Practice inspired by the “10/10ths" concept in performance driving. This represents how close a car is being pushed to its absolute limits – Forza Motorsport calculates the fastest theoretical time through a corner using any car with any tune or upgrade. Players are scored against this and will be shown a 10/10ths score on-screen. The more you push the car in each corner, the more bonus XP you’ll be rewarded. Now corners are like your enemies, giving instant feedback to help you unlock your fastest self.

Forza Motorsport introduces fully dynamic time-of-day with weather on every track, which means mastering the car and track combination is more important than ever before. Grip levels are constantly changing, and as the time progresses, the temperature of the track adjusts and impacts the grip of your tires, as does rain and even just driving the car. We also simulate when tires leave rubber on the track, which increases grip. No two laps will feel the same with these dynamics, which means every Open Practice session is important – especially if you’re looking to secure that podium finish!

BUILT NOT BOUGHT

New performance upgrades are unlocked as the car levels up, and after every Builders Cup event, you can install these parts to your car and continue its journey. Some upgrades will be available upon your first level up, while others will remain locked until you reach a higher level. The required level to unlock each component will be shown on the in-game upgrades menu. Each part includes a preview of what it does with a spider graph that demonstrates how it impacts the overall balance of the car.

Car Points are the resource used to install upgrades and are only earned through in-game progression by driving and levelling up the car. You are not locked into any choice you make with your build as you can easily uninstall a part and regain those Car Points to use elsewhere.

This new approach to car building in Forza Motorsport gives players agency, adds tons of replay value and encourages experimentation. Because you aren’t spending credits on upgrades, you no longer are forced to decide between buying a cool new car or upgrading your existing car.

CHALLENGE THE GRID

Forza has always featured a challenge system with scalable rewards based on difficulty. Challenge the Grid evolves this concept, allowing you to dial in race settings to your preferred sweet spot. Choose your starting position, change AI difficulty and damage settings, and customize the race rules. Challenge the Grid encourages you to play your way and makes every race more exciting and replayable.

FEATURED RACE

Featured Race tests your car build and the skills you’ve learned from Open Practice. Compete with our most advanced AI opponents yet, populated by your friends, their cars and their liveries – constantly updating with their latest creations and customizations.

Forza Motorsport’s new AI opponents fuel thrilling and intense competition in every single-player race with fun, tight and clean racing. They can keep up the fastest Forza drivers in our community and be competitive without any cheats or hacks.

Each race rewards Series Points that lead towards the overall trophy, as well as Driver XP, Credits payout and Car XP. The post-race screen also shows a summary of how you’re performing in the current series.

ALWAYS EVOLVING

This is only a sneak peak of the Builders Cup Career Mode, the new car building campaign in Forza Motorsport. Designed to evolve and expand overtime – we'll be regularly introducing new cars, tracks, championships and events. Also, the car-building mechanic featured in Builders Cup is a primary driver of the in-game economy for all of Forza Motorsport – to help us ensure the security and fairness of the game for everyone, we’ve opted to make progression server-based, which will require an online connection during Builders Cup.

orza Motorsport starts with over 500 cars and 20 world-famous tracks. Combined with our cutting-edge physics, advanced AI opponents, dynamic time-of-day with weather, and enhanced audio, the Builders Cup Career Mode is your new way to fall in love with cars.

In the coming months, we will show you our new Featured Multiplayer experience, Free Play, Rivals, and more.

PRE-ORDER NOW

All of this and more awaits October 10! Forza Motorsport is coming to Xbox Series X|S consoles, Windows 10 and 11 PCs via the Microsoft Store and Steam, and Xbox Game Pass for console, PC and Cloud Gaming (Beta).

Pre-order the Forza Motorsport Premium Edition on the Microsoft Store today and be first on the starting line with 5 days of early access beginning October 5, 2023. Click here to discover the included add-on packs and the other versions of the game.

Steam players, add Forza Motorsport to your wish list today to be notified of when pre-orders are available for you.

See you at the starting line!