August turned out to be an unusually busy month. We're heading into September in a position we've been working toward for a long time: heads down, all hands on deck, building Faction Wars.
Over the past several months, we've shared a lot about the ideas taking shape behind Faction Wars. A larger universe where battles have consequences, Factions compete over territory and resources, and individual missions contribute to something much bigger than a single match. The first proper prototypes are underway, and we're currently aiming to begin internal playtesting and iteration in September. There is a lot to build, test, rebuild, and balance.
QoL and Growth Updates
Iron Rebellion was selected as a Horizon+ Monthly Featured Game in August, introducing tens of thousands of new Quest players to the battlefield.
Putting that many new pilots into the game at once gave us a much clearer picture of the experience through the eyes of someone climbing into the cockpit for the first time. We watched where players struggled, listened to what they told us, identified issues, and used that feedback to help prioritize many of the improvements we've been making.
Not only that, we’ve been building (and launching) other experiences to improve the game throughout the past month.
bHaptics support is officially live with 56 native haptic events across supported equipment.
We've implemented offline functionality, allowing the game to continue working when an internet connection isn't available. When offline, you'll be able to host your own matches against bots, and the game will automatically return to its normal online functionality once your connection is restored.
Several additional quality-of-life and gameplay improvements went live throughout August as well, including:
New team-killing warnings and a punishment system designed to prevent repeated team kills.
Improved reticle indicators to make teammates easier to identify while zoomed in.
New rumble feedback when grabbing cockpit controls and the center lever.
Going forward, we'll continue addressing bugs and smaller quality-of-life issues as they arise, but our development priorities are shifting firmly toward Faction Wars.
The Community Has Been Busy
All those new pilots from Horizon+ have made the community a particularly interesting place lately. Our existing community spent so much time helping those new pilots get familiar in the cockpit and we can not thank them enough.
Throughout the month, we've seen some incredible uses of Spectator Mode since its release. eon.nova, in particular, has been regularly publishing matches and clips in the Discord Clips and Vids channel, showing battles from perspectives that simply weren't possible before the Observer Update.
Players have also been pushing the customization system much further than we expected. Cosmic Drifter's shark camo has become a standout, while Orazal has been the in-house Picasso of custom paint jobs, including an Eye of Sauron designs shown below. With the addition of new camo add-ons, we're excited to see how much further players push the system.
We're also seeing more organization happening on the battlefield. Iron Core and Spectral Foxes are both actively recruiting, while several smaller clans are beginning to form and organize through the clan section of our Discord. If you've been looking for a reliable squad to deploy with, this is a very good time to find one.
Iron Rebellion Is Going Full Sim in Chicago
We'll be at SIM Gaming Expo in Chicago, September 18–20, where we're partnering with DOF Reality to run Iron Rebellion on their H4 motion simulator. Yes. A VR mech cockpit on a real motion rig.
Getting there has required us to put a lot of work into Iron Rebellion's telemetry systems so the simulator can respond to what's happening inside the game. This will be the first time we've pushed Iron Rebellion into this kind of native motion simulation setup, and we're extremely excited to see how it feels with pilots actually inside it.
If you're coming to SIM Gaming Expo be sure to find us!
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The next several months are going to look a little different for us. We're a small independent studio attempting something enormously ambitious. That requires focus.
While we'll continue fixing issues, listening to feedback, talking with the community, and sharing what we can, expect our team to spend a lot of time heads down for the remainder of this year. These Monthly Briefs will continue to be where we bring you along for that process.
We know there are things longtime players want to see improved. We see those conversations and we're listening. Some things can become small fixes today, while others are much larger questions that we're carrying with us as we build Faction Wars.
See you on the battlefield.
– Black Beach Studio