11 bit studios revealed today that the sci-fi survival sim has been delayed from its 2024 release window to Q1 2025. According to the team, The Alters needs the extra time to optimize and ensure every aspect of the player's journey as a?s seamless as possible.

I played through the demo of The Alters in the previous Steam Next Fest and while I enjoy pretty much everything 11 bit creates, The Alters felt special. In fact, it was my favorite demo of the fest and put The Alters up there with my most? highly anticipated releases of the year.

Yo??u take on the role of Jan Dolski, a space miner who crash lands on a harsh di??stant planet that is so close to its sun that sunrise on this planet means lethal doses of radiation. But Jan finds a strange resource on the planet called Rapidium that allows him to create alternate versions of himself called Alters.

Each version of Jan appears to have lived its own life a different way; one Jan may be a scientist, while another is a doctor. Using these many Jans, the player must create outposts across the planet to gather resources and continue to survive and tech up. But each Jan also has its own emotions and needs. The result makes The Alters part base builder and part The Sims-like management of your Alters. Like 11 bit studios' other series Frostpunk, The Alters is pretty narrative-driven as you progress.

I'm all for a brief delay to get a title some extra love as it enters its final stretch, and I'll for sure be picking up The Alters. But I hope others are willing to give it a shot in what is turning out to be a pretty jam-packed Q1 2025 with some big releases like Civilization 7, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Monster Hunter Wilds, and more.

The Alters is now set to release in Q1 2025 on ?PC,?? PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

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The freeze is coming in the form of Frostpunk 2, and the Deluxe Edition will get you? plenty of extra add?itions, but at a price.

The sequel will? look to build on the success of the first title, which introduced a new form of post-apocalyptic city-builder to the audience. But the second title is a fresh beginning, and the Deluxe Edition has an extra cost. Let's take a look at if you should spend the extra money or go for the ch??eaper Standard version.

All Frostpunk 2 Deluxe Edition contents

The Frostpunk 2 Deluxe Edition is available for $74.99, but if you choose to pre-order it, you save 10%. The Standard version costs $44.99, and there's no discount. But tha??t's no??t all, and here's the list of all the content that comes with Deluxe.

• 72 hours of early access
• 3 DLCs as post-release content
• Exclusive in-game item
• Digital Artbook and Soundtrack
• Warm Flesh Novella (Digital version)

While you do save slightly less th?an $30 with the Standard, you get nothing more than the base game. You'll also have to wait till September 20 before you can dive into the frozen land and build your city.

Is the Frostpunk 2 Deluxe Edition worth it

So far, we have yet to receive any information about the post-launch DLCs. For Frostpunk, 11 Bit Studios released two mega expansions: The Last Autumn and On the Edge. The Rifts was a small DLC that introduced bridges ??to traverse cliffs, so I am not considering it an expansion.

The Last Autumn and On the Edge were both excellent releases. Both DLCs had fantastic alternate story scenarios, very different from the base game. In fact, I have play??ed more hou?rs after the two DLCs were released.

That said, this is for Frostpunk, and the Digital Edition you're getting is for Frostpunk 2. All 3 DLCs are likely going to be a part of a possible Season Pass, and you should be able to purcha?se them separately as well. Yes, they're goin??g to cost more, but you don't have to engage any more money upfront than you need to at the moment.

Ultimately, if you have faith in 11 bit and what they could deliver, the Deluxe Edition could help you save at least a few dollars in the long run. Early access doesn't matter so much to me since this isn't a?? live service title. The??re's no grind in it, and beginning on September 20 won't make any difference over September 17.

I have yet to decide which edition I am getting, but it's likely going to be ??the Deluxe.

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Sure, surviving the frosty tundra of a frozen Earth is rough enough, but what if you add dinosaurs to the mix? Well, that may just be an option when the post-apocalyptic sequel Frostpunk 2 launches in September. Developer 11 bit studios teased mod support for ??the survival city-builder via Twitter ea?rlier today with a brief video clip.

Mod support would be pretty chill-y

Throughout the video we see a variety of, let's just say, not normal Frostpunk entities including a T-Rex, a dragon, the massive circular roaming base from 11 bit studios' other upcoming title, The Alters, as well as an army of adorable pink creatures from their recently released Creatures of Ava.

Frostpunk 2 already looks to be a quality sequel to the original, putting players in the role of building a prosperous settlement in the Arctic wastes, managing the various factions that reside inside instead of focusing purely on surviving. But the official mod support always has the potential to add a ton of new content as well, once ?players are able to learn how the modding works and start pushing what can be done?? with it.

The video teased that we will learn more in just a couple of days on August 28. Popular mod solution mod.io also commented on the tweet asking, "What could it be?đź‘€". With more recent titles adding mod.io support, it's quite possible that's the route that 11 bit studios have taken with integrating mod support into Frostpunk 2. But as the video says, we will find out more on August?? 28.

I already have a ton of ideas of what types of mods I'd love to see in Frostpunk 2, but dinosaurs and dragons aren't a bad start. Frostpunk 2?? is set to release on Sept??ember 20, 2024, on PC via Steam, Epic Game Store, and GOG as well as on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. It will also be a Day One on Game Pass release.

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11 bit studios gave a glimpse of the upcoming survival city-builder Frostpunk 2 with a gameplay reveal trailer. The developer and publisher also confirmed that the sequel will be released as a Day One on Game Pass title. Frostpunk 2 will originally launch on PC in the first half of 2024—where it will be available? on Game Pass for PC—followed by a later release on Xbox Series X|S—and Xbox Game Pass—as well as PlayS??tation 5.

Three Decades Later

The gameplay reveal looks similar to what we saw during a preview event a few months ago, highlighting the shift of focusing on a small ramshackle community from the original Frostpunk to building a sprawling post-apocalyptic city. Rather than placing each building individually, players will now district out areas similar to what you'd see in Cities: Skylines focusing more on the bigger picture.

Even though the Earth is still ravaged by a seemingly never-ending blizzard, the harsh environment is no longer the biggest t??hreat. Taking place 30 years after the original, humanity has learned to adapt to its new reality for better or worse. However, players will have to manage a new threat: humanity itself.

No longer desperate just to survive, human nature has once again led people to chase an unsatiated thirst for power. Players will have to manage the demands of variou?s factions, trying to keep everyone? happy while doing what's best for the city.

Frostpunk 2 is shaping up to look like a fine successor to the original, keeping its bleak and intense setting while also being its own thing. I'm looking forward to keeping the generator running when it ?releases in the first half of this year.

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On paper, The Thaumaturge sounds like a delight. The unique setting of 20th Century Warsaw? Check. A turn-based RPG combat system that changes based on? the spirit you use? Check. In practice, everything comes together in a confusing fashion. Let's dig into it.

A slow start to The Thaumaturge's story

The beginning of the demo for The Thaumaturge is as flat as it gets. You're not given an aspiring introduction, telling you why you should care. The background of the world just flies past your ears into a solace wall behind you. You're left with a protagonist that isn't relatable, and voice acting that's uninteresting across the board. The game's dialogue isn't particularly personality-filled and the performances come off as wooden more often than not. To add insult to injury, the story didn't click with me until perhaps near the end of the demo. While I wasn't interested in the protagonist's narrative, it may be fascinating to find out the backstory of these spirits called Saluters and how you acquire their powers. It's kinda similar to Persona as you? can gain their powers in combat after defeating them.

The Thaumaturge combat system is surprisingly cinematic

Speaking of the combat system in The Thaumaturge, I was surprised by how cinematic the game is. You get unique angles on some attacks that look deadly. The main character only punches his way so far in this early point of the game. Eventually, we'll be able to "use the unique set of their skills to gain an advantage while exploring the world and when bringing your adversaries to their knees," said publisher 11 bit studios on the game's Steam page. I'm anxious to see it play out.

The boss was tough but...

When I faced the boss in the demo, I started to turn against the combat system. I thought the only way to heal normally was through the ability Eerie Intoxication, which restores half of what you've lost in a round during the attack. Through multiple attempts, the amount of damage incurred on your charact?er makes his healing ineffective at a certain point of the ba?ttle. I fell to it three times.

However, I discovered a big mechanic that the developer Fool's Theory needs to make way more obvious. You can upgrade your attacks with added quirks if you drag and drop certain arrows into place, but the UI is so odd it's hard to spot. For example, you can get a 60% chance of doubling the strength of one of your attacks. This is massive and changes the complexity of the battle. These essential upgrades are hidden within menus, and ??the UI should show how important they are.

Additionally, the protagonist has an additional ability called Not of this World, which causes a chunk of damage AND heals your character by half of their health. It unlocks later down the line of battle after you've staggered a foe into its breakdown state. You'll need to eliminate all of thei??r focus to do this. It's interesting, but poorly?? setup.

Investigating the area

You won't just be battling foes in The Thaumaturge. You'll be exploring locations, picking up items,? and trying to figure out what exactly happened before you arrived. There's a Perception mechanic, that lets you scan the area around you. It's not as intuitive as I'd like, and at one point in the game, I was running ?around not knowing where to go next. Sometimes, you may need to head to the other sub-quest to actually complete the one you're on; keep that in mind.

An aspect of the game that seems to have promise is the dialogue choices. It seems like what you decide will actually ??make an impact on the narrative. For example, the game teases whether or not you should trust Rasputin on this adventure. The Steam page says the game "allows you to alternate your choices and make you deal with the aftermath." Hopefully, the developer will pull off that promise.

An early showing of Unreal Engine 5

The Thaumaturge, like Immortals of Aveum, runs on Unreal Engine 5. The environments look pretty with some great Lumen and Volumetric lighting all around. The quality of the monsters' renders is super detailed as well. Unfortunately, I'm taking an all-expenses paid trip to the Uncanny Valley with the characters. The expressions of the likes of Rasputin ?and other personalities in the game creeped me out a little. The eyes kinda look dead inside as well. Something just rubbed me the wrong way.

Despite the character models, however, The Thamaturge looks fantastic on my monitor on Epic settings. I can't wait to see the game's interpretation of Warsaw in the full title. It will be released on December 5 for PC systems. A PS5 and Xbox? Series X/S release is also scheduled sometime in early 2024.

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Following our recent preview of Frostpunk 2, 11 bit studios also gave us a roughly 40-minute look at some gameplay from the upcoming sci-fi adventure title The Alters. I have to admit that I knew very little about The Alters beforehand. I remembered the announcement trailer from over a year ago. But while intriguing, that trailer gave no indication of what sort of game The Alters would be. Following the presentation, I certainly have some more questions. But I also know The Alters looks like a creative and interesting tit?le that's right up my alley.

Into the Jan-known

The premise of The Alters is definitely a peculiar one. A simple worker, Jan—pronounced "Yahn"—finds himself stranded and alone after crash-land?ing on a distant planet. Unfortunately for Jan, the planet is in orbit of a massive sun that showers the planet with radiation. In an act of desperation, Jan harnesses the power of a crystal on the planet that allows him to create alternate versions of himself.

These alternate versions are aptly dubbed Alters. Each Alter follows the premise that they are a version of Jan who made completely different choices in his life. So while the original Jan is a simple worker, his Alters can be ch??efs, doctors, or even scientists. Not only do they each have their own unique lifestyle, they all have their own personality and emotions as well. They are sentient beings, with their own goals, fears, and feelings on the current situation.

Of course, Jan and all of the Alters want to survive. So they will have to collectively work together to figure out a way to escape the harsh planet they are stranded on. In the meantime, they have the shelter of a massive ever-moving mobile base which has been visible in both? trailers so far.

A Jan-canny dilemma

In terms of gameplay, The Alters is a base-building survival game where players will have to utilize their Alters to explore their surroundings??, gather resources, construct outposts, and more all to ensure the survival of Jan and his Alt?ers. But players will also have to manage the relationships and well-being of their Alters. Not only is each version of Jan useful for its sheer manpower, but each one has its own distinct skill sets.

In the presentation we saw, one of the Alters complained about a strange and abnormal sensation in their hand. However, even though Jan assured the Alter they would get it checked out, events kept occurring that preoccupied his time. In the end, the Alter ended up taking matters into his own h??ands—quite literally—and dismembered his own limb. It seemed like a stark reminder that the feelings of the Alters matter. They are each their own self, not to just be used as an asset.

From both a narrative and gameplay perspective, The Alters looks very intriguing. By the end of the presentation, I wanted to know more. And with past outings like Frostpunk and This War of Mine, I can only ??imag?ine the adventure that awaits Jan and his Alters.

The Alters is coming to PC and current-g?eneration conso??les in 2024.

The post The Alters Preview �What Jan go wrong? appeared first on Destructoid.

Frostpunk is one of the more memorable titles for me in recent years. Building the last bastion of a city in a post-apocalyptic world—when done correctly, like it is in Frostpunk—is sure to stick with you. I'm not quite sure there have been any games that have been released since that made me navigate harsh moral dilemmas quite as much as Frostpunk.

We recently had the opportunity to take a look at the freeplay mode of the upcoming sequel Frostpunk 2. A?s such, we didn't get to see the story and nitty-gritty bleakness that's a staple of the universe. But, we did get a look at some of the new features and overall gameplay the sequel will? bring.

It's a cold world

The stakes in Frostpunk were about as high as they can get. Players have the task of building an efficient hub in the shadow of a massive coal generator. In the end, you would o?versee a population of about 600, while making choices all for the overall goal of simply surviving the harsh frozen landscape.

Frostpunk 2 takes place thirty years later. Survival has been accomplished, and the focus has shifted to thriving as opposed to just surviving. If the original could be considered a simulation title on a micro-scale, Frostpunk 2 is certainly on a macro-scale in comparison. Instead of placing individual buildings, you lay out entire districts. It's a sprawling city as o?pposed to a tight hub in the original. Instead of a po??pulation in the hundreds, your city can grow into the thousands.

But while the denizens of Frostpunk 2 have survived the apocalypse, life still isn't sunshine and rainbows. The choices player make when building up their city has shifted from pure necessity for survival to trying to help the cit??y thrive and flourish. Several factions have been established, including the Engineers and the Foragers.

A divisive utopia

In the demo presented to us, a choice was given to the player where they had to side with one of these two factions on how to increase food production. Engineers wanted to utilize certain chemicals to increase food production. The Foragers, on the other hand, believed nutrients could be harvested fr??om human waste and produced into a fertilizer of sorts. The choice was made to side with the Foragers, which in the immediate term provided a food production boost.

However, a little later in the demo, some problems stemming from our decision started to pop up. Those tasked with handling the human waste—mostly children—ended up falling ill. Of course, this led to new issues and new choices, just as you would expect from Frostpunk. Even though survival s?eems assure??d at this point, that doesn't mean there aren't still harsh realities to living in this post-apocalyptic world.

You can't make everyone happy

At the end of the presentation, we see that there are several factions at play in Frostpunk 2. It's important to balance your decisions amongst the factions. You don't want one faction having all the power, or a faction to have growing dissent within you due to feeling neglected. While factions aren't necessarily a new system to a game like Frostpunk 2, the overall theme m?akes ??it so much more important.

There is even a law system where delegates from the different factions will vote to pass or abolish laws. As the player you will have ways?? to influence the factions, even pressuring them to vote your way. Of course, you will have to carefully walk the line of give and tak?e when it comes to dealing with each faction.

I'm excited to see more about Frostpunk 2, especially its story mode. The original Frostpunk was one of the better simulation management game??s in recent years. It's great that 11 Bit Studios is opting to keep the core ga??meplay here while building upon it. But the additions to the sequel seem meaningful enough to make it a new experience worth playing.

Frostpunk 2 will release on PC in 2024.

The post Fr?ostpunk 2 Preview �Can a utopia thrive at the end of the world? appeared first on Destructoid.

Send in the Clones

11 Bit Studios (of This War is Mine fame) has revealed its brand new title, The Alters, during the PC Gaming Show.

The intriguing-looking adventure sees a space builder, strande??d far off on a distant planet, who is forced to, essentially, clone himself again and again in order to find a way back home. The protagonist must create versions of himself sporting new and unique skills, but might find himself losing ??a little of himself each and every time.

The developer promises drama, mystery, horror, and quirky ingenuity as our hero finds himself surrounded by alternative versions of himself. Frankly, I know a few folk who would be super happy with that scenario. The Alters is currently avai??lable to wish?list on Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhb5axw1iz0

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Play the modern classic on PS5 or Xbox Series X/S

Every so often, a game comes out that completely changes the way we think about the medium, and This War of Mine is one of them. Originally released back in 2014 by Polish developer 11 Bit Studios, the game depicts a group of civilians trying to survive in the midst of a war that's swept through their city. It's harrowing, it's heartbreaking, and it's a game that depicts the tragic realities of war all too well.

Today the studio announced that it will be rereleasing This War of Mine: Final Cut for the PS5 and the Xbox Series X/S on May 10, and the game will also be available on Xbox Games Pass. To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the game back in 2019, 11 Bit released This War of Mine: Final Cut, which was free for those w?ho already owned the game.

This version of the game included new story content, remastered maps, upgraded 4K graphics, UI improvements, and more. The narrative DLC This War of Mine: Stories will also be available to purchase on PS5 and Xbox Series separately, or bundled together with the base game in This War of Mine: Complete Edition.

11 Bit's CEO Przemek Marszal had this to say about the Final Cut in a press release:

"The message and themes existing inside of This War of Mine have, unfortunately, become brutally vivid and relevant in recent months. We believe it’s especially important to educate people on the realities of war right now, while its horrifying reality has become a daily struggle for people that are close to us. We’re proud that recent This War of Mine fundraising helped us create a wave of spontaneous help for war victims in Ukraine, and we hope we can further spread our antiwar message with This War of Mine: Final Cut."

It's horrifying that a game like this can still be so relevant today, but 11 Bit really is doing some great work in spreading their message and raising money for the efforts in Ukraine. Here's to hoping that this Games For Change award n?ominee can continue to inspire that change into the future.

The post This War of Mine: Final Cut gets a ??PS5, Xbox Series X/S release this May appeared first on Destructoid.

A chilling return from the legendary studio

11 bit studios, the renowned developer behind games like This War of Mine and Frostpunk, has just announced their newest publishing project, a cinematic narrative adventure called South of the Circle, drawing from the likes of Firewatch and What Remains of Edith Finch. Following an Apple Arcade debut, the studio has partnered up with the British BAFTA-award-winning developer State of Play for a PC and console release.

Set in the 1960's Cold War era, South of the Circle follows Peter, a man who finds himself torn between his love, his work, and the tension between military powers that hides under the surface. The art style is minimal, yet still stunning, and the game will be voiced by a stellar voice cast, including Gwilym Lee (Bohemian Rhapsody), Olivia Vinall (The Woman in White), Richard Goulding (The Crown), Anton Lesser (Game of Thrones), Adrian Rawlins (Chernobyl), and Michael Fox (Downton Abbey).

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk5VoKBZ5xw

External Development director of 11 bit studios Marek Ziemak shared hi??s own thoughts on the ?game:

�em>South of the Circle is one of those love-at-first-sight things. The game's narrative and artistic sensitivity immediately captivated us. South of the Circle is heavily-focused on storytelling inspired by world-class cinema, which makes it a bit diffe?rent from our previous titles.

Once players experience its instantaneously engaging, emotion-packed narrative, we're convinced they'll understand why we wanted to have it in our publishing portfolio. And we’re thrilled to be able to start working with State of Play since it’s a studio that has been on our radar for a long time.�/p>

Fans in the comments of the announcement trailer joke that 11 bit studios only makes games that take place in incredibly cold settings (which they kind of do), and talk about how excited they are to have a new title from the publisher. 11 bit is one of those indie studios that just never seems to miss, and given South of the Circle falls into my all-time favorite game genre, this is one that I personall?y can't wait for, as well.

No release window yet, but South of the Circle w??ill be coming soon to PC, Ninte??ndo Switch, Xbox Series S|X, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4.

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Moving beyond the age of coal and into oil

Survival city-builder Frostpunk is getting a sequel. 11 bit Studios announced today that Frostpunk 2 will head 30 years into the future of their frozen Earth, and they showcased it with a new trailer.

The video doesn't explain too much, though it looks like ??the survivors are still looking for new sources of power. The oil extraction industry is humanity's next hope, though it sounds like that direction might be causing some rifts.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kfHUN4gFiw

Once again, it looks like tough choices and limited resources will be your obstacles. In a press release, co-director Jakub Stokalski described his vision for Frostpunk 2, ?and that players should expect a "wide universe" of choices, freedom to shape society and their city, albeit with consequences.

"Frostpunk 2 builds on the conflicts of its predecessor—survival vs human values, life vs the arctic frost," said Stokalski. "But most import?antly, it adds a new layer that is present in many aspects of the game—be it politics, be it society, be it technological progress—the conflict betw??een humans and their nature."

The first Frostpunk was a neat city-builder that mixed management and government with the terrors of a frozen waste, ever-encroaching on your meager city. I remember playing it on a whim once at a PA??X and quickly becoming hooked; its?? mix of building and surviving was really intriguing, though I've yet to go back.

There's good news for me and others who haven't spent more time with it yet though, as 11 bit Studios is making the first Frostpunk available for free on Steam from today, Aug. 12 through ??Aug. 16 at 1 p.m. ET. You'll have to buy the game to keep playing after that point, but if you've yet to check it out, that seems like a pretty goo??d way of doing so.

Frostpunk 2 has no release date set yet, though it's confirmed as coming to Steam, GOG, and t?he Epic Games Store.

The post Frostpunk 2 announced with icy new trailer appeared first on Destructoid.

Landmark moment for 11-bit studios

In a particularly groundbreaking moment for the medium of gaming, 11 bit studios' acclaimed release This War of Mine has been designated "recommended reading" by the Polish Educational System. Originally released back in 2014, This War of Mine deals with the besieged city ?of Pogoren, Graznavia, tasking players with the survival of a handful of citiz??ens, huddled together beneath the chaos with meager food and supplies.

This new motion is the result of a campaign by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the country's Ministry of Education, who have determined that the award-winning game has brought significant value to Poland's cultural heritage. This War of Mine will now feature in a variety of scho??ol and college programs, and will feature in classes related to the human sciences: sociology, ethics, philosophy and history.

"Games are a work of culture. Modern ones, natural and attractive ?for the young generation. Games speak a language instinctively understandable by them - the language of interaction," said 11-bit studios CEO Grzegorz Miechowski in a press statement. "Using this language, games can talk about everything - emotions, truth, the fight between good and evil, humanity, suffering. They are similar to literature in that regard, however, they use the aforementioned language of interaction... I’m proud to say 11 bit studios' work can add to the development of education and culture in our country. This can be a breakthrough moment for all artists creating games all around?? the world."

This War of Mine is available now on P?S4, PC, Xbox One, Switch, and mobile platforms.

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It's still as cold as ice

11 Bit Studios is no stranger to somber storytelling. In 2014, the studio released This War of Mine, a harrowing survival game inspired by the events of the Bosnian War. Rather than go a shade lighter for its follow-up, the developer doubled down on the grim nature of humanity with 2018's Frostpunk. This city-builder -- the developers don't really consider it a real-time strategy game -- cast players in the role of a leader who has to make tough decisions about who lives and who dies as humanity struggles for survival in the wake of volcanic winter. The game is grim, but that didn't stop it from becoming a best-seller. With more than one million copies sold on PC, Frostpunk is ready to jump to consoles. It's a move the developers aren't taking li??ghtly.

"We always knew we wanted to bring Frostpunk to consoles, even when we were doing the PC version," explained Project Lead and Senior Lead Designer Jakub Stokalski during a recent interview in San Francisco. "Our reso??urces are not unlimited so we focused on getting the PC version right. But at the same time, as soon as that game went out and did very well for us, we came back to this console project and started working on it. The first prototype wasn't that great in the sense that we just locked in the controller and tried to go the easy way. Turns out it's a lot of work to actually make it look and feel great on console and we really did not want to short change our approach."

According to Stokalski, it took a lot of work for 11 Bit Studios to get Frostpunk run?ning well on PC. For console, not only would the team have to deal with less processing power than most modern gaming PCs are capable of, but also translating the more traditional mouse-and-keyboard control scheme to an Xbox One and PS4 controller.

"Pretty much, we redesigned every part of the game to work with a gamepad," he said, "and we were playing around with it and it was pretty fast. But then you have some of the world's best players making their cities bigger and bigger, and because this is a game of challenge you're pressed into some high-pressure situations, we wanted even more flexibility a?nd precision with the controls, so we now use stuff not really present in the PC version like the express menu."

The express menu aggregates every common action in the game. If there is something you do often, you'll have quick access to it throughout the console version of Frostpunk. Stokalski gave me a demonstration of the game in action on an Xbox One X and he was able to piece together a small city with remarkable speed using just the control pad. The only action available at the start was "employment," but with the precision mode for city structure placement and the op??????????????????????????tional top-down view, he had himself a nice but ultimately grim bustling berg in just minutes.

"We always had a hunch that a circular city design might be a boon when work??ing with a controller, and we were able to do things with the game?? like top-down mode and precision mode that enables you to be really, really confident about where you're placing your buildings without having the pressure of worrying about moving it a bit left or right."

11 Bit Studios is continuing to tweak the controls as the game steamrolls towards its release. Stokalski said that in working on this version, the console controls have become second nature to him and that, while he is predominantly a PC gamer, he actually prefers playing Frostpunk with a controller.

"Just the simple ??fact that I'm not worrying about getting small movements perfect. This really is an experience for me ??that is more laid back, but at the same time, precise enough that I can focus and invest myself in the game."

The team are also working to improve the graphics, to get the game looking as good on consoles as it does on PC. On the Xbox One X, Frostpunk retains its brilliantly bleak frozen landscape with snow and?? ice effects to really send a chill up the spine. As for the scale, Stokalski said the studio is making sure its preserved for the console ports, though I did notice a bit of digitization of the graphics as he zoomed out of his city to the greater map of the area. Nothing major, but it's the only moment in the demonstration that didn't look absolutely pristine.

When Frostpunk comes to consoles, both digitally and physically, it will bring with it all the DLC released for the game so far. ?While the game will get a performance boost on Xbox One X and PS4 Pro, don't expect it to support 4K. Also, given how much work it's taking to get it to run properly on either of these console?s, don't expect a Switch port ever.

"It's a dema??nding game," Stokalski explained, "and we're fighting to get it running on this hardware and the Switch, as amazing as it is, is still a much weaker console basically."

Even if it's not coming to my current console of choice, I'm excited that I'll soon have a chance to actually play a game I've been interested in for a long time. I'm an unfortunate Mac owner, so Frostpunk has evaded me since it lau??nched last year on Windows. Knowing how much work the developer is putting into ??the console controls, to make it the best example of gamepad city-builder title, has only whet my appetite more.

11 Bit Studios has at least two more "big" DLC packs planned for the game. Stokalski said he anticipates those will hit PC first with console releases to follow not long after. Because Frostpunk is known as one of the harshest and gloomiest games on the market, I asked Stokalski if his team planned the lighten?? the mood with its next set of downloadable content.

"Well,??" he said, "it's certainly not goin?g to become a Disneyland simulator."

Stokalski said he anticipates sending the title in for certification in the next couple of weeks. If all goes according to plan, he anticipates Frostpunk will see release on PS4 and Xbox One before the ??end of summer.

The post 11 Bit studios wants Frostpunk’s console port to be a superior experience appeared first on Destructoid.

We've got Switch, PS4, and Xbox One!

Check out today's contest and win a Switch, PS4, or Xbox One copy of Moonlighter.

Moonlighter looks like a really neat li?ttle dungeon-crawler/action RPG hybrid. What's not to like about that combo? You c??an hop into dungeons, beat up baddies, and sell their horns and stuff in your shop for money! It's a cool idea, for sure.

I'm not the only one who thinks so, because 11 Bit Studios has sold over 500,000 copies of it. Whoa. That's a lot of dungeons crawled, man. They just announced some DLC to celebrate the achievement??, and gave us a couple of keys to give away!

Moonlighter gets its first expansion this summer with Between Dimensions, which will include:

• New Monsters - Expand the main experience by filling current dungeons with new creatures.
• The Interdimensional Dungeon - An all-new dungeon swarming with powerful new mini-bosses.
• New Gear - Adventurers can pick up a plethora of new weapons, armors, shop items, and rings.
• Trick Weapons - Never before seen Trick Weapons will grant players special powers, but they might come with a price! Twisting Moonlighter's mechanics in new and inventive ways, these new weapons will punish your enemies, but might just be a little err... tricky at the same time.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves, here. You can win a digital copy of the game by commenting below with your platform of choice (Switch, PS4, Xbox One) and telling us how many fingers I'm h??olding up. Hint: I lost all of my fingers back ?in 'Nam. This one's a toughie, folks.

We have one key for each platform -- the Switch and PS4 keys are for NA accounts, only. Winners will be drawn on Wednesday, April 24. Be sure to comment using a Dtoid account with your current email address on file. Don't have an account? Make one here and get in on the fingerin' fun!

Moonlighter is available now for Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.

The post Contest: Win a copy of Moonlighter appeared first on Destructoid.

When Truth is the only weapon

11 Bit Studios has released the latest chapter in for harrowing adventure game This War of Mine. The Last Broadcast is the second of the game's "Stories" trilogy, following on from 2017's A Father's Promise.

In The Last Broadcast,?? we return to the war-torn city of Pogoren, which still limps through an intense and brutal military conflict. The new DLC introduces us to Malik, who is running a pirate radio station out of his home, where he attempts to provide moral support in the face of governmental violence.

No doubt The Last Broadcast will retain all of the misery and moral turpitude of This War of Mine's previous releases. ?The DLC includes ne?w civilians and locations, as well as radio reporting mechanics and multiple endings. Truth is said to set the people free, but for the long-suffering citizens of Pogeren, that truth can come at the ultimate price.

The Last Broadcast is available today on PC for This War of Mine. There is currently no date listed for other platforms????.

The post The Last Broadcast is the latest grim ins??tallment of This War of Mine appeared first on Destructoid.

Includes current and upcoming DLC

Deep Silver are to publish 11 Bit Studios' grim survival title This War of Mine for Switch. The sleeper indie hit will be arriving on Nintendo's hybrid? console at the end of t??he month.

Originally released back in 2014, This War of Mine asks players to take terrible risks and make morally-tough choices in order to keep a small band of survivors alive and safe in the fictional war-torn city of Po??goren. Players must spend their days crafting, providing aid for their group and doing their best to keep morale high, before venturing out at night to scavenge for food and tools, hoping to hold out until a ceasefire is declared. Grim stuff.

The Nintendo Switch edition will include all DLC and extra content released to date, such as The Little Ones, the Anniversary content, and Episode One: Father's Promise. All future DLC will be automatically downloadable, free of charge. You can check out a new trailer for the ??Switch release below.

This War of Mine: Complete Edition launches on Nintendo Switch November 27.

The post Brutal survival title This War of Mine: Complete Edition is headed to Ni??ntendo Switch appeared first on Destructoid.

Can't beat freeze

11 bit studios performed its specific sort of magic when it released Frostpunk late last month. Frostpunk i?s a complex survival city builder where you try to keep a civilization from freezing to death. It has that 11 bit charm in that ??you feel good about exactly none of your decisions.

However, there's something Frostpunk-related that you can feel unconditionally good about: There's a bunch of DLC coming and it's all free. Today, 11 bit laid out the Frostpunk roadmap for the rest? of 2018.  ??It includes five substantial updates alongside regular technical fixes.

First up, a new survivor mode will be added in June. That's the only add-on that's given a specific time frame. Sometime later in the year, Frostpunk will get: basic customization for automatons and people, a new scenario cal??led "The Builders," a new endurance mode, and an update titled "Winter Snapshots."

It's always great to see a game supported this way. But, this also means you've got a whole lot more feeling bad about yourself to look forward to. When it comes to 11 bit, nothing can ever jus??t be unequivocally good.

The post Cool stuff: Frostpunk ?has a whole lot of free DLC p??lanned appeared first on Destructoid.

A closer look at how a soundtrack comes together

Celeste was a surprise indie hit when it released at the? beginning of this year, and it&r??squo;s now solidified itself as a bona-fide classic in the realm of twitch platformers. However, the incredibly tight gameplay and damn-near-perfect level design are only some of the factors that make it such a standout title.

Alongside a wonderfully-written story, which tackles themes like depression and anxiety in a way that never feels gaudy or pretentious, the music p??erfectly mirrors the themes and actions of the player. When you move from scene to scene, the music moves with you. When Madeline, the protagonist, is filled with a?nxiety, so are the sounds that surround her.

Most impressively, the soundtrack stands on its own, outside of the game, as a genuine album, yet it’s still impossible to fully remove it from Celeste. While the songs have their own story to tell, it’s all so perfectly scripted for each scen?e that I find myself getting very specific flashbacks to exact moments from the journey when listening.

Lena Raine, the composer for Celeste, put so much heart and feeling into each note. After years of hard work in the industry, she’s finally starting to receive some of the recognition that she deserves. Most people hear a song in-game and assume that the creation process is exactly the same as what you hear on the radio, but there’s so much more to it than that. I had the chance to chat with her last mon?th about writing video game music and just what exactly that entails.

Kevin: In your experience, what's the biggest difference between writing music for a video game and more conventional music? On both a technical and philosophical level, it seems like there would be a great deal of variation between the processes.

Lena: In my eyes, the differences lie primarily in the intended purpose of the music as informed by the venue where it's experienced. Video game music can still be conventional music, but it relies on how you define conventional. One of my favorite methods of defining music comes from David Byrne's book How Music Works. He argues that music genres and styles arise out of the venue they're meant for. Chamber music was made, literally, for a chamber. Religious music is defined by the cathedrals it's performed in. It's slower than chamber music, meant to fill a huge resonant hall.?? Recorded music is defined by the analogue or digital mediums it's recorded for. To extend Byrne's reasoning, video game music is defined by the hardware and systems it's interacting with.

Everyone generally knows that early game music was defined by its hardware limitations. Various chip sounds, and their limited possibilities, created a palette to ?write with. Once everything moved to CD audio, however, there arose a common misconception that limitations were over. You could just write whatever you wanted. But even still, for games that wish to engage with reactive and dynamic presentations for their music, there are very real limitations to be taken into consideration.

How does your music react? How does a piece of music being reactive define its composition? Most AAA games have settled into an expected pattern for this. You know what music will probably sound like in an Assassin's Creed title when you go from exploration to combat. On the indie side, we're trying our best to work within those limitations and create scores that use dynamic implementation to the advantage of music. But that also means that game music is somethi?ng to be experienced within the context of a game. It's?? defined because it happens while you're interacting with a game, and that's what sets it apart.

_{[This is easily my favorite song from the album.]}

Most video game soundtracks fall into this trap where all of the songs sound like audio clips from the game. You went the extra mile and created something that stands alone as a full-on album. These are fleshed out songs that build into a separate story of sorts. More insanely, the instrumentation is actually interesting from a music theory and composition standpoint. This isn't just basic pop melodies either. You veer off into territory that reminds me of early Faust, Berlin era Bowie/ Warm Jets era Brian Eno, and some of the more poignant acts of today. Why go that extra mile? Why challenge yourself like that? Clearly, it's paid off in retrospect, but what was your reasoning going in?

I think it's extremely important to consider a game soundtrack and a game album two wildly different things. They should be treated separately, but also cared for simultaneously. It's actually a very important part of my process, especially with dynamic music, to create a listenable "album version" of each series of tracks I write for a game. I did this with every area I wrote for in Celeste, as well as my upcoming soundtrack for ESC. It's not just for m??y benefit, or the soundtrack's, but it al?so helps the team to hear my intention for a piece of music and how it evolves through play.

When you just write for a se??ries of cues within a game, you risk losing the thread. It can be extremely easy to drop thematic content, write something that is too similar to a cue you just wrote, or is wildly out of place. By checking in and hearing music not just in the nonlinear context of a game, but in a linear and organized fashion, you can verify that what you've written for the game can be considered a complete and well-paced statement.

When compared to structurally complex music, a game level that has an interesting narrative flow will also require a soundtrack with a flow to match. But then it's not just looping wallpaper. It's movements within a larger whole. It's developing thematic material across movements. It goes back to what I menti?oned earlier about venue defining the music. If I let myself use the mechanics, structure, and narrative of a level?? to help define the score, then the music is more interesting.

As for the second question: My general attitude is, why would anyone ?not challenge themselves? I can think of a number of reasons why you wouldn't (time, money, direction...), but I got into music because I wanted to write th??ings no one else was writing. So I challenge myself because I feel I need to, and to prompt others to join in.

Speaking of audio cues... As someone with limited knowledge of game development, I was curious how that process actually works. Are the audio triggers in the game (when different segments of a song start up during frames of the game) something that you handled the direction of, as the composer, or is that something other folks on the team implement at their own discretion? How involved do composers typically get with the way that their creations are presented in-game?

It really depends on the composer and also how they're interacting with the team. Sometimes there's an audio engineer specifically tasked with planning out and implementing music files as they're delivered from the composer. Sometimes, and especially for indie projects, the composer is handling everything themselves, or they just hand it ov??er to the designers to implement. I've had a number of different situations over the years.

For Celeste, I mostly planned out the cues and how I'd like them im?plemented. I then sent over the files and worked with our sound designer Kevin to get them into FMOD, the middleware tool we used for audio implementation. Then, Matt and Noel would take the triggers generat?ed by FMOD and implement them in the level scripting. For my current projects, I'm doing all the audio setup myself, working on setting up files and how they trigger dynamically, and preparing them for designers to implement.

_{[Really, they're all amazing though.]}

You say it's a "middleware tool," but, for the sake of folks like myself who are totally lost, what does that actually mean? Everything I've found has left me scratching my head when trying to understand its primary function. Is it just a software specifically designed for implementing audio in a game, via choreographing audio triggers, or does it have other functions as well?

Basically, FMOD is an implementation tool that works in conjunction with the game engine to handle how the game calls and deals with audio. Everything regarding the scripting of dynamic music to the way sound effects play back is handled by the tool (which could be FMOD, Wwise, and a few others, but the first two are the most common). It simplifies things for the programmer or designer implementing audio, so they can just put a simple call in the script -- thing plays or cues here -- and the audio tool handles the rest, from randomizing sound effects, to doing fancy fadeouts, or triggering dynamic music cues on the beat. 

I've always been curious about how a soundtrack is initially built for a video game. As a composer, are you just presented with a demo that gives a basic outline of the game and story, or is it a more reactive process where you're given segments of a game, in increments over time, to specifically write for? What sort of basic blueprint were you presented with when beginning to write for Celeste?

Again, it totally depends on the project. I love to work as hands-on as I possibly can. For Celeste, I had constant build access as the team was working on ??the game. I was in there, playing levels, even before any final level graphics were created. I'd test out mechanics, give feedback, and plan out how I'd use the structure an?d interactivity of each level to influence the structure of the music. In previous projects, I've been given a simple list of tracks that need to be written, as well as access to story outlines and artwork from the project to help guide my process. I'm not as big a fan of this, however, since it really makes the process so much less directed. If at all possible, I always want to be playing the game both before and after my cues are in there, to make sure I've got the right vibe and pacing.

One fun exception to this was when I worked at ArenaNet as a designer on Guild Wars 2. I often had the opportunity to write music for quests I was designing, which meant I was creating the content, determining how music would fit into the ??gameplay, writing the music, and then implementing the cues in my script. Having that kind of extreme hands-on experience really helped me a lot in learning the full iteration loop necessary to get music into a compl??ex game.

_{[A screenshot from ESC. I have no idea what's going on here, but I'm into it.]}

You mentioned your upcoming project called ESC. What the heck is it, and when are we going to hear more? As of right now, all I've really heard is that it's an interactive novel that you'll be composing music for and writing. Is this going to be something akin to visual novels, which focus specifically on narrative, and how will the change in gameplay elements affect your approach to writing music? Is the soundtrack going to be orchestral (like past works), electronic, or something entirely different? No matter what, I'm super excited to shove more of your ear candy into my brain, but what should fans expect?

The general way I've been pitching it is that ESC is an interactive novel about identity, roleplay, and dreams. It takes place within two character perspectives: a recreation of a text-based roleplaying MUCK, and a series of logs from a mysterious individual known as the Navigator. During the MUCK sections, you inhabit a character and type out all of her text input, but everything has been predetermined, a lot like the text chat segments in Superhot. I wrote and programmed the whole game, and of course composed the score, which is just under fifty minutes of music. I also teamed up with 2 Mello (composer of Read Only Memories, as well as a remix in Celeste itself) to do some really cool sound design and Dataerase, a super rad glitch artist, to do background art and graphic ??design for the project.

The soundtrack is primarily ambient electronic, but verges into a bit of IDM, trance, and some genera?lly weird, glitchy shit. Because everything is focus??ed on embellishing the words themselves, the music often functions more like sound design, until it really needs to crank up the intensity. I had a whole lot of fun writing both the words and music, so I'm hoping people check it out! It's in beta right now, and hopefully releasing later this Spring.

When you say that ESC is an interactive novel, do you mean something akin to Steins;Gate, Danganronpa, and Doki Doki Literature, or is it more like a text adventure? Also, you wrote, programmed, and composed the music for this project? Is this your first time ever helming a video game's development from all angles like that? How do you balance a passion project like that with your other work?

I'd say it's more along the lines of the short stories in Lost Odyssey, or the text-only segments in the NieR series. In fact, the way I present some of the game was extremely inspired by NieR: Automata. Similarly, the game is not short on surprises, and you might find that it is slightly more t??han I'm letting on.

The way I differentiate between ESC and a visual novel, is that something like Danganronpa or Doki Doki Literature Club focuses more on visually presenting the characters and dialogue. ESC is more about focusing on the text itself, whether it's a roleplay chat log or first-person prose. There's backgrounds, sound design, and music, but the primary focu??s is the writing.

And yes! I've primarily worked on other people's projects, but this is my first time stepping into the director's seat so to speak. I've got a lot of experience working part-time on my own projects, like my music work before going freelance, or writing a novel while working QA earlier on in my career. I'd say it's less balancing and more sacrificing my own free time to do something I'm passionate about. You could say that's poor work-life balance,?? but it's a bit hard to draw that line when my hobbies are also things I aspire to be professional at.

_{[I'm loving the art style for Date or Die so far.]}

Celeste has been quite the success story, and you're now, rightfully so, one of the more prominently known composers in the industry. Outside of the upcoming project ESC, what's your next move? Seriously, the sky is the fucking limit for you. Do you ever see yourself pursuing a music career outside of games?

So, regarding pursing a music career outside games, that's something I already started with my Kuraine alias. I released a solo EP Singularity back in 2016, which is actually seeing a vinyl release alongside Celeste! I'm hoping to continue that project and release even more solo music beyond what I'm doing for games. I'd also love to del?ve into writing music for animation at some poi??nt. I have no strong desire to score live-action film, but I've always loved animation from around the globe and am extremely up for trying new things.

As for my next projects, I extremely wish I could dig into those publicly! Unfortunately, almost everything I've got going is under some pretty heavy NDAs. The one project I can talk about is Date or Die, a visual novel by a whole bunch of talented folks that I'm co-writing the soundtrack for alongside Christa Lee, who also contributed a remix to Celeste. Beyond that,? I'm working on an unannounced indie game that is extremely charming, and I can't wait to talk about it. I'm also working on a AAA title that I cannot say anything about and is probably a long ?way off. Stay tuned!

Alright, Date or Die has my attention. What's it about, who else is involved, and when can I expect to hear more? Just going off the name, my brain is already starting to come up with hypothetical plots.

Date or Die is a visual novel about a group of individuals that have been kidnapped by a terrible individual known as The Host and forced to play a televised dating game with life-or-death stakes. It's a bit like The Bachelor meets Danganronpa. There is actually a fully-playable prologue demo available! Th?e demo features Christa'?s music as of the time of its release, but we're both going to be hard at work to flesh everything out!

Thank you so much for taking the time to be a part of this! Seriously, you're doing exciting things in the industry, and it's always great to get some insight. Video game music is still in this wonderful phase where it's growing and rapidly evolving at alarming rates. It's a beautiful thing, and you're working magic like a freaking wizard. I have no idea how you're doing it, but, please, don't ever stop.

Thanks so much?? for the great questions! It was a plea??sure!

The post Celeste composer?? Lena Raine talks video game mu??sic, philosophy, and upcoming projects appeared first on Destructoid.

It's a cold town

Here are some thoughts that popped into my head while playing Frostpunk:

• These damn cripples are useless!
• Why is the work day so short? I need to do something about this.
• If you don't like working a 24-hour shift, maybe you'd like to head out into the freezing waste?
• I wish I could put out propaganda more often...

I am not a kind and benevolent leader.

Frostpunk (Windows)
Developer: 11 bit studios
Publisher: 11 bit studios
Released: April 24, 2018
MSRP: $29.99

Frostpunk is a story-driven strategy game that plays out as a crisis simulator more than a town builder. Yes, you ar?e bui?lding a town in the frozen wastes, but your primary goal is almost always dealing with some seemingly catastrophic event that has just occurred or is about to. Evidently, it is not smooth sailing when trying to live in subzero temperatures.

Again, I'd like to emphasize here that this is a story-driven adventure. The main story will take approximately 10 hours, and there are two other stories to unlock, each with their own unique twist on the gameplay. This certainly hurts the replayability factor, something that this genre tends to thrive on, but that doesn't mean the game's value is diminished. It's because of the story focus that Frostpunk feels so unique. Well, that and the overwhelming feeling of absolut?e dread while playing.

I haven't played This War of Mine, the developer's last title, but I am very aware of the morose and grim tone that it sets -- something that Frostpunk mirro??rs. I'm starting to wonder if 11 bit studios is okay? Who hurt you guys? I can only imagine that to be able to masterfully evoke these awful, life-dampening feelings you ??would have had to experience them first hand. 11 bit, if you need a hug, let me know.

Seriously, this game will crush your hopes and dreams. I think it's important to make the distinction that, if games don't tend to affect your emotions much, you won't get a lot from Frostpunk. The crux of Frostpunk lays in the difficult decisions the player makes and how it affects the little AI villagers of the town. If someone were to ignore the emotional weight of these decisions, there is sometimes a clear-cut "best" choice to make, economically. The "better" decision generally comes with emotional baggage that you, as the town's fearless leader, must deal with but has no ta?ngible effects on the game. 

I'm getting ahead of myself. The core of Frostpunk is to build a city that can withstand extreme temperatures. The world has frozen over and a band of refugees has found solace in a sunken colony, built around a giant generator. The generator uses co??al to produce heat to the buildings around it. Structures like homes, hospitals, and resource hubs are all built on a radial grid spanning outward from the generator. A tech tree is also utilized to research new buildings or to upgrade existing ones.

As with any survival game, Frostpunk's key to success is resource management. There is a lot to keep track of, yet it never feels overwhelming. Coal is important to keep the generator (and other heat sources) going. Wood and steel are used for bu??ilding new structures and for initiating new research on the tech tree. Raw Food is required to turn into Food Rations and keep people from starving (something I was notoriously bad at??). On top of these tangible resources, as the supreme leader, you must also manage your peoples' Discontent and Hope levels. 

L??aws can be signed every 18 in-game hours that can drastically change how the game plays. These laws often come as a "one or the other scenario." What do you do with the children of the town? Send them to work as child laborers? Or build a child shelter to take care of them? Some law decisions are rather straightforward, while others had me staring at the screen for what felt like an eternity, weighing the options.

This is where Frostpunk shines. When you assume the responsibility for your actions and become absolutely crushed when there is no pleasant road fo?rward. When I completed the main story, I felt no jubilation. Partly because the ending didn't feel very satisfying to begin with, but also because I wasn't happy with how I got there. The decisions I had to make, the events that occurred, and the lives that were lost still sat on my shoulders. 

Then I started another storyline.

The first go-around will be tough, but the game moves at such a great pace that I find it hard for someone to completely fa?il -- which is great because had I failed eight hours in, I would not want to have started that story over again, as it would play out very similarly. Some of the underlying mechanics are not explained well, but through trial and error, it's easy enough to learn much of it in preparation for the other, more pointed storylines. The difficulty is also completely customizable, which for some, will allow for greater replayability with an added challenge. Personally, I'm content with living that experience a grand total of once per storyline.

Managing heat becomes the backbone of the town very quickly. As the temperature fluctuates and days pass, it becomes more and more difficult to provide a livable temperature for the residents. This can be solved by either being super efficient with coal mining and use or by simply limiting who enters your town. I quickly found a large population to be unsustainable with my city and had to make some tough decisions regar?ding letting in new survivors. Managing t??he heat levels in the city is a full-time job and goes a long way to make this survival strategy game a lot more active than expected.

There are some finicky bits that can detract from the experience. While I advocate for getting emotionally invested in the story and not worry??ing as much about the "mechanically right thing to do," some options are just too hard to pass up. Every building needs to be connected to a road, which costs wood, but the 100% efficient way to do it is to just have the road connect to the closest corner of the building. You're bound to end up with randomly placed zig-zag roads that just barely connect to things, which looks ridiculous.

I also had some strange bug where, after a cutscen?e, one of my automatons (robot gatherers) just....died. Sunk right into the ground. Except then the model popped back up and stood there, unable to be selected. Its absence hurt my ability to collect resources in a huge way and had a dramatic impact on my playthrough. As I mentioned before, the ending feels somewhat lame after everything the player goes through. I suppose it sort of goes along with the general dreadful feel of the game, but I was still hoping for more.

Frostpunk is such a bizarre game. Playing through it mechanically and logistically leads to a relatively standard resource manager. However, by investing yourself in the town and the people within it, you allow in the crushing?? weight of the decisions you'll have to make and the emotional consequences that follow. They may not be affecting real people, but treating it as such is what this game is all about. It's an emotional roller coaster that will likely leave you more defeated after "winning" than when you first started, and that is incredible.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Frostpunk appeared first on Destructoid.

'A sandbox/endless mode is on our mind'

This War of Mine developer 11 bit studios is onto something special with Frostpunk, its newly-released "society survival game." In just over two days, the title passed 250,000 sales, with 11 bit CEO Grzegorz Miechowski confirming post-release support. "Yes, we had plans for the expansions an??d now we're 100% sure we are doing that, including many free updates of course!"

The team is currently prioritizing bug fixes and balance tweaks, but it has "A LOT of ideas" for potential updates, including new scenarios and modes, and also wants to hear player suggestions. An endless mode is one such possibility. "Frostpunk is going to grow ??- all you have to do right now is to wait a little bit. We do plan to release a roadmap for our development plans as soon as we're ready."

Our review is? in the works, so if you're on the fence, please look forward?? to that soon.

Post-release update and a huge THANK YOU! [Steam]

The post Frostpunk clears 250K sales, devs ple??dg??e free updates and expansions appeared first on Destructoid.

Cool deals for cool kids

It's a great week for fans of strategy games as a number of higher-profile titles release today including BattleTech and now Frostpunk. Both titles are sitting pretty on top of the Steam top-seller list, with the steampunk city builder Frostpunk presently at the #1 slot. Brought to you by the developers of This War of Mine, 11 bit studios' latest title is well received by both critics and ??player (though it appears if you're a Chinese gamer on a Chinese language Windows OS you may be in for some technical difficulties).

Priced at only $29.99, Frostpunk isn't going to be a huge commitment for early adopters - and it can be significantly cheaper thanks to the wonderful world of PC games digital retailer. We've spotted two solid deals on Frostpunk for release week.

Frostpunk Deals

• Frostpunk at GMG (Steam) — $22.49 (list price $30)
• Coupon: OUTNOW25 for 25% off

• Frostpunk at Fanatical (Steam) — $26.99  (list price $30)
• Use coupon code MAY10

Update: new 25% off deal listed above.

Both retailers are selling the same Steam key of Frostpunk, though regional pricing may differ (translation: we didn't bother checking the price outside of North America). The Fanatical SUPER6 code only takes 6% off but did not apply to this game previously as it excluded pre-order titles. For GMG's deal, the best discount of 25% off is hidden behind a login gate, but since you'll have to create an account to checkout anyways this probably isn't a huge ba?rrier.

For those with technical difficulties (even if you're not a Chinese user) and Windows 7 or 8, make sure you install the latest Visual C package and everything should be kosher for Frostpunk.

The download size for Frostpunk is a modest 4.7GB, so even if you're buying today you should be able to play soon - provided your In??ternet isn't stuck in a '90s speed limit.

Game deals from Dealzon. Sales help support Destructoid.

The post Frostpunk release-week deals as high as 25% off appeared first on Destructoid.

Experience the living nightmare

2014's miserable survival title, This War of Mine, is available to play for free on Steam until the end of the weekend. Developer 11 bit studios announce the trial in part celebration of their new game Frostpunk, which launches later this month.

This War of Mine is the tale of a group of civilians struggling to survive during a military conflict in the fictional country of Graznavia. Players must make pragmatic decisions and take extraord?inary risks in order to provide food, shelte??r and healthcare for the characters, while protecting them from hostiles such as looters and snipers.

The game was praised upon release for its grim, suffocating aesthetics and unflinching portrayal of the harrows of war on a city's populace. While hardly a fun-time-for-all, This War of Mine is an uniquely-crafted experience of balance, pragmatism and sacrifice. It was also reinvented as a tabletop game earlier this year.

This War of Mine is free to play on Steam from now until April 8. Should you wish to purchase the title, its price has been slashed by a huge 70%. Frostpunk launches on April 24.

The post This War of Mine ??available to play for free on S??team until April 8 appeared first on Destructoid.

Devs assure us they haven't frozen to death

It's certainly been a long time since we've heard from the people at 11 bit studios regarding Frostpunk. The last time I delved into their world, I went in with aspirations of destruction - and found myself almost instantly protective of my freezing little citizens. Only reluctantly did I harden my heart and enact policies that would let them survive the terrible cold and rampant starvation, even ??as I thr?ew their bodies into a big hole in the ground and watered down their soup. Oh, and technically, I lost the demo too. So there was that.

Well, the silence ??has been broken, both to give us some info about the business side of the game, and to introduce us to the incredibly-helpful-and-not-at-all-th?reatening Automatons, giant helper robots that you can build to assist your populace.

I'm not sure what it says about a game - or its developers - that something meant to help the player insta?ntly made me suspicious.

Billed as "mankind's greatest?? creations" and "the pinnacle of human science", automatons are towering robots capable of replacing entire work crews. No more trudging through blizzards?, losing toes, losing Michael to hypothermia.

Poor Michael.

The things work 24/7, with ??only periodic breaks to refuel at your equally-towering central generator. With research available to make them even more efficient, what could possibly go wrong? Well, looking at the spindly-legged machines, which are taller than almost all of the buildings shown, they don't seem that stable. What's more, the devs seem to imply that your people won't like ??having robots stomping around (or through?) their buildings and streets. What if little Jimmy were to get underfoot?

Poor Jimmy.

11 bit studios also released a tentative launch window of the end of March - that's pretty soon to say they've been in radio silence for the past four or five months! Most intriguing is that Frostpunk is only the first in a series of games planned for ??the same world. I can only hope they ge?t more positive from here (but knowing them, it's doubtful).

I think we can expect a lot more news f?rom 11 bit studios as we near March, hopefully including info on price, pre-orders and more neat/ins?idious game features.

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Rise and grind

I spent eleven years in retail. During that time, I worked at a major electronics store and a small independent skate shop. Though the companies couldn't have been more different, the overall experience was the same. Retail sucks. Virtually every shift was stressful, ??frustrating, and punctuated by long periods of soul-crushing boredom. When I clocked out for the last time this past summer, I swore that I'd never work a day in retail again.

Moonlighter ??is making me reconsider that promise. Digitally, at least.

I spent a few hours with an early build of Moonlighter last week. It's a charming little game that has players split time betwe?en shifts at an item shop and nightly runs through ra??ndomized dungeons.

There's a bit of Recettear in Moonlighter's DNA. Both games share a similar approach to managing a store. Will, Moonlighter's white-haired protagonist, can display items, set their prices, and sell goods to customers as they stream into his shop. But while the economic systems and shop management in Moonlighter echo Carpe Fulgar's cult classic, it's Wi?ll's dreams of a life outside of his shop that sets them apart.

Even during the game's opening hours, it's clear that Moonlighter understands one of the ??defining traits of almost all retail employees: an earnest desire to do anything else. Will spends his days slinging potions and squirreling away gold coins, but his heart isn't always behind the store's register. Instead, it's the allure of a life spent adventuring that keeps him motivated. His nightly trips to the maze-like dungeon on the outskirts of town are not only a necessity to keep his store stocked but a chance to escape and live life as someone else, even for a few hours.

I'm not sure if the push-and-pull relationship between Will's employment and his aspirations will play a huge role in Moonlighter when the game's finished, but there were notes of it throughout the build I played. Each morning, I'd set some items out -- iron ro??ds and red goo, mostly -- and set them at what I assumed were fair prices. When it came time to open the store, I'd w?atch potential customers trickle in. As they perused Will's wares, speech bubbles with different faces would appear, indicating if an item was a steal, deal, or an average price. Once I sold out, I'd close the store and prepare for a dangerous resupply trip.

If Moonlighter's retail portions borrow from Recettear, then the dungeon crawling sections are akin to the 2D Zeldas. Though dungeons get randomly generated upon entry, they're a collection of connected rooms. Progressing through them means surviving against waves of enemies and environmental hazards by mixing offensive combos and a handy dodge roll. Will's capable, but hardly a seasoned warrior and Moonlighter's first dungeon is surprisingly difficult. It's not uncommon to enter a room and immediately be overwhelmed by reanimated suits of armor and laser-spewing vases. Without practice (and a steady flow of healing poti?ons), I was KO'd?? a dozen times. 

The two sides of Will's life make for a compelling experience. Once I got the hang of Moonlighter's flow, I was spending my days making money to feed my adventuring habit. Other vendors in the Will's town sell potions and weapons that make dungeons considerably more manageable. Using Will's profits to secure better gear means you'll be able to bring back more loot for the store. It's an accurate emulation of the "daily grind," a vicious cycle that's relatable to anyone who's toiled away behind a store's register for countless? hours. 

But this isn't to say that Moonlighter isn't fun. I had a blast watching customers react to my inventory and dug balancing my current stock with shoppers' preferred prices before testing my mettle and restocking my wares with nightly jaunts to the dungeon. As a vertical slice, Moonlighter's early build shows plenty of promise. 

Moonlighter is slated for? a 2018 release on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch. 

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Please sir, can I have some more?

On the very first day, on my very first decision, I sent the children to work. ??"It's only the 'safe' jobs" I told myself - the cookhouses, to prepare food. The gathering piles, to pick up bits of coal, wood, and stee??l. "It's for the greater good" I told myself.

Less than a day later, I enacted a law watering down people's filling meals into a thin, watery gruel. ?The people wouldn't be well-fed, but they would have food. "It's for the greater good" I told them all.

How far are you willing to go to ensure the survival of your people? How far is too far? What will be left of you, and those around you, when it's all said and done? These are the questions Frostpunk demands of us. Demanded of me.

My people would survive t?his experience, but I'm not sure?? they lived.

Frostpunk, the new title by sadness enthusiasts 11 bit studios, is obviously much more than just a city builder, and certainly not the happy solarpunk future I was constructin??g just yesterday. Building off of the depression-fueled scavenge-fest that was This War of Mine, Frostpunk places you into an alternate-history England where a massive ice age has swept the land. H??umanity was forewarned, and tried to prepare with massive "Generator Cities"... but for whatever reason (probably "humans are dicks"), the plan failed. A small band stumbled across one of these Generators, and that's where the game begins.

With my workforce diversified between generic worker-bees, specialists, and now children, my people set out, carving little drifts through the snow to reach the game's main resources: wood and steel for buildings and research, and coal, for the a?lmighty Generator. I build a hunter's hut to gather food, and a workshop, in order to reclaim lost technology. As n??ight falls, I fire up the Generator, flames shooting into the sky like it's going to demand the One Ring. A nice big circle proclaims that I have less than twenty-four hours of coal stockpiled.

That night, the first of my people become ill. Already saddened by my child-labor and food laws (Not that there's any food!), the people band together and demand shelter. "Be careful what promises you make," the game cautions. I promise to house half the population instead of all of them, but I do so in sturdier bunkhouses - I remember This War of Mine, and I know I have it easy so far, seeing the temperature is set ??to fall in a few ?days.

A medical shelter is built, interrupting everyone's rest. Possibly due to a bug in the demo, any construction assigned will be immediately carried out. Those that are sic??k will continue to work, and get sicker, unless treated - in which case, you'll be out both the workers and those set to treat them. Just to the buildings alone, I lose a third of my resource gatherers. While I meet the housing crisis, hope is still critically l?ow. There's only one option.

It's time to build a fighting pit and enact duels to the death. Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves. ?They eat it up faster than the pathetic gruel I never have enough of. Especially the children. You can see them cling to th??e sides of the cage in the night.

Decisions continue to be made. Instead of burial, I throw the dead into a pit in the snow. This depresses the hell out of everyone, but is healthier, and leads to my next decisions - in case of death, the dead shall be used as organ donors for the living, but that the gravely ill will be met with experimental procedures to heal them more quickly (?including amputation).

It all ??goes to hell on Day four, wh?en the temperature drops.

It doesn't just drop, it's twice as cold. By the end of day four, fifteen of my eighty citizens are sick, and six of them are "gravely" ill. A child is coincidentally injured while searching the steel piles. Do I give her the day off? I actually find myself having the thought that doing so would encourage others to get themselves ??hurt, before snapping out of it and letting the child rest... but decide not to enact "let children work all jobs."

Things continued from there for several days, as supplies dwindled, I spared my people the pain of gathering in the cold, moving them into sawmills and ore-drilling stations. Later than intended, I created the Beacon, a hot air balloon that lets me send scouts into the outside world. This appears to be where the build of Frostpunk's story will lie. Each day my scouts could r?each a new location, and then either spend a day bringing what they find back, or moving on to ??the next discovery. There are a few signs of abandoned civilization, but my scout never managed to reach them in time.

Finding refugees was a blessing, but I had been miraculously lucky with deaths so far; only three, and all from starvation. My medical stations are over-capacity. A crying woman asks me to stop throwing the dead in the pit, but I decline??. More importantly, angry mobs form and demand to be fed. I've already built a hothouse (basically a greenhouse), and made the decision to use the deceased as fertil?izer, but there's no time. It's not enough.

I enable cannibalism.

That night, the demo ends. By all accounts, no one had actually been eaten, but they were going to damn-well start. When I started playing Frostpunk, I had joked about enabling cannibalism from the start, but I couldn't do it until forced by my situation. Yet I gladly - if not happily - sent children to work immediately in potentially dangerous situations, let people duel to the?? death (they never did actually kill each other), and potentially mutilate the g??ravely ill.

With gorgeous, stark visuals emphasizing just how tenuous your grasps on life is, and the ability to never question your morality, but always make you question your own, Frostpunk will be one to kee??p watching - just like I watch t??hat coal meter deplete.

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Taro, Zero, and Belial

This week's edition of Famitsu magazine reveals three more incarnates of Ultramen will join the superstar monster cast of City Shrouded in Shadow. They are Ultraman Belial, Ultraman Zero, and Ultr??aman Taro. We're still hoping for an English localization, but it will release in just over two weeks on Oc?tober 19 in Japan.

I'm continually surprised by the number of Ultraman variations are out there, but I guess it should be expected when there are so many iterations of Godzilla and Super Sentai. This comes from ignorance of the franchise, but I find the name "Ultraman Taro" a bit amusing compared to "Belial" and "Zero." Taro is more than just a common male name in Japan, it's the common name: Taro Yamada is the Japanese equiva??lent of John Smith. 

In any case, I think there's going a little overboard with a??ll the Ultramen and possibly Evangelion Units. Probably hard and expensive to get rights from tons of franchises (and then model, animate, and program different types of creatures) but having like eight Ultramen seems maybe redundant.

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Get Rich or Die Tryin'

Dungeon crawling is inherently selfish. They're a bit of video g??ame risk versus reward in the sense that they exist to test the player ??and (theoretically) leave them better equipped for future challenges. They play to a loop of constantly improving the hero so that they can take on tougher foes.

Moonlighter uses dungeon crawling in a different way. At night, protagonist Will takes to the randomly-generated en??emy-laden dungeons in pursuit of loot -- just like in most other games. However, the aim isn't to finish the labyrinth. Instead, it's to extract before dying. That's because Will has big plans for that treasure. He's going to sell it.

Although he's a hero by night, Will is a shopkeeper by day. He runs a bustling general store in town, and he uses everything he collected in the dung??eons to pad his bottom line. Talk about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. 

Capitalist fundamentals are in full effect in Moonlighter, as Will has to figure out the perfect price to sell all of his items at. There's a store log that's updated every time a sale is recorded, and it marks how happy the customer was with their purchase. If t??heir eyes are lit up with coins and delight, you probably sold it too cheap; if they're all pissed off, you probably ??made it too expensive.

Finding the sweet spot is essential to a thriving business, but other variables eventually come into play. Some customers have individual tendencies that will skew results (like refusing a sale unless it's an absolute bargain). In our hands-on time with Moonlighter, we didn't f??iddle with enough day/night cycles to notice these outliers. Developer Digital Sun Games assures us they're present, though.

Messing with the economy will take time to understand, but there's also the option of keeping?? some of the loot. Will's ultimate goal is to slay the world's five monster bosses. The shop is just a means of self-improvement, the necessary money-making in order to get powerful enough to fight those behemoths. All this decision-making mig?ht be tougher than the actual dungeon crawling.

Moonlighter is expected to release sometime later this year on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. It was originally Kickstarted (by more than three times its asking amount) and now 11 bit is publishing it. That means plenty of people have bought into Moonlighter's gameplay loop well before it was ever finished. I'm sold on the idea, but I still need to see the effect of the long-term economics and how satisfying it is to nail those price points for maximum profit. I'm hoping to come out of this like one ?of those customers who's sporti??ng a dopey grin and coins in their eyes.

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In more ways than one

We've been covering 11 bit studios' next game, Frost Punk, for some time now. Today marks our first look at the gameplay in motion, albeit for only a moment. It's ??a "city-survival" game about establishing a settlement in a frozen hellscape and facing tough ethical decisions as you fo??rm societal customs.

Pretty much what you'd expect from the folks behind This War of Mine, then.

This trailer confirms something I already suspected: that I'll want to play this game bundled up. The sound design makes me shiver. I'm also suddenly struck with the intense desire to rewatch Snowpiercer.

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It's adventure time and you're the Ice King

11 bit is the team that's most well-known for This War of Mine, a depressing game about trying to survive as a civilian in a war-torn city. Last time we talked to the developer, it tried to distance its next game, Frostpunk, from This War of Mine. Senior writer Pawel Miechowski emphasized that while the studio is certainly proud of its previous efforts, it didn't want to rely on bleak and disp??iriting themes to convey an important message.

Even if 11 bit is actively trying to avoid its past, it can't completely leave it behind. Frostpunk shares some meaningful undertones with This War of Mine with regard to tough choices, moral dilemma, and the well-being of others. However, in Frostpunk, th??e scope of everything seem??s to be broadened tremendously.

We recently spoke with Miechowski and lead designer Kuba Stokalski about the direction of Frostpunk. 11 bit isn't yet ready t?o talk about specifics of gameplay, but it's willing to elaborate on the setting, the conflict, the player's role -- all the stuff that fills out a world.

Miechowski introduced the concept by saying "[Frostpunk] takes place in what's possibly the last city on earth. This is what you see at the end of the video [embedded above]. It's a sort of alternate history where the world got frozen and the last pieces of civilization are trying to survive. You lead this society. The themed technology in the game is a natural reply to the fact that the world got frozen. It's not steampunk for the sake of steampunk, but you need to melt ice to produce heat. This is why steam is an important part of this world. You, as a leader, you rule the society and you need to help society surv?ive. So we internally started to call this genre a society survival?."

That's the probably-reductive but easy-to-understand pitch for Frostpunk: It's a city builder mixed with a survival game. Ruling and expanding the city is the goal, but just making sure everyth??ing doesn't collapse is a more pressing matter. As Stokalski tells us "One of your responsibilities is to make sure that society as a whole survives, not just individuals."

Frostpunk isn't restricted to the confines of the city. Players will be able to send groups into the wilderness in an effort to explore new areas, discover resources, and learn why the world is a frozen hellscape. Regarding these expeditions, Stokalski mentioned that this won't be a StarCraft-like real-time strategy component; specifics are being saved for a late?r reveal.

The past may be interesting but the present will feel much more pertinent. That's where the important decisions lie. "The optimal thing for you to do might not be the morally right thing for you to do. This is something that carries over from This War of Mine. Generally, this is a completely new property and a completely new world that we built for this game, but it's in line with how we want to make games. We want to build games that provoke questions and leave you to answer them. This will be evident in the society surviva??l part," Stokalski says.

He continues "The theme here is that we're asking the question 'What are people capable of when they're faced with life-or-death situations?' But it's not on the level of a particular person but rather a whole society. What are you willing to sacrifice in ?terms of the rules and your culture and what's valuable to you as a people? What are you willing to give and what are you willing to stand for if your survival is at stake?"

Miechowski chimes in "I need to also underline that when you play the game, as a ruler of this society, you can be very proactive. You can shape this society in the way you think it should be shaped. You don't necessarily need to respond to the current situation. It's not like the game tells yo??u 'Here's a problem: choose A or B.' It's different. You can shape it in a way that it should be done for more efficient survival.

Miechowski also cleared up a few release-related details. Frostpunk will be a single-player-only game. It's currently slated for PC but consoles may be a possibility. Miechowski reasons why it's only PC right now by saying "At the moment, we're focusing on how the game should be instead of expanding to more platforms." 11 bit is aiming to launch sometime in the second half of 2017 but Miechowski tempers that with "It's going to be o??ut when it's ?polished and done in a way we want."

The execution is still nebulous but the concept is starting to come together. One way or another, an entire society is going to prosper or fall by your doing. We'll have to wait a bit longer to find out ?exactly how your reign will look.

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No Vita release :(

Although this was accidentally leaked by Best Buy a few days back, it's good to get a solid confirmation of Dragon Quest Heroes II's Western release...with a?? caveat. Releasing on PlayStation 4, the sequel with hit North American shores April 25 and Europe April 28 next year. There h?as been no word on the Vita version coming West, so it's highly unlikely it will. 

Dragon Quest Heroes II continues the same action RPG play style of the first Dragon Quest Heroes, but adds new main characters, new playable characters from Dragon Quest's franchise history, and four player online co??????????????????????????-op. Check out the slick announcement trailer below! 

Dragon Quest Heroes II for ?PS4 coming to North America on April 25, Europe on April 28 [Gematsu]

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