Hi everyone! We've got a bunch of things to talk about in this update, including what we've got planned for Descenders Next, and some improvements & fixes we've made in the latest update! Let's start with what we've got planned for Descenders Next!
We've been sitting & watching you all play since we launched into Early Access, and we've already got a ton of ideas we're looking at for the future of Next. Here's a rundown of some of them:
Career Mode
You all love Career Mode in Descenders, and why wouldn't you? It's a great mode to progress through, with great replayability, so we want to bring something similar to Descenders Next. This doesn't mean we're getting rid of the current World Map - which we'll call 'The Grand Tour' for now - but it means we're adding another way to play the game!
New ways of Unlocking Gear & Phasing Out DesCents
Similar to Descenders, we are going to add a pool of items that can be unlocked based on the amount of REP earned in a session. You will also have the chance to earn gear through team specific objectives & ranks. In The Grand Tour, instead of shops we'll have gear that will be locked behind objective based quests. All of this means the DesCents currency wouldn't really have a place anywhere, so we would just remove it entirely, and unlocking would be solely through REP & objectives. Of course, we wouldn't want you to lose all your hard earned DesCents and get nothing in return, so we're going to have a look at how we'll be able to compensate you when the REP changes roll in!
Crew Members
We know how much you all love the Crew Members in Descenders - we do too! With the return of a Career style mode, we're looking at bringing back Crew Members, just to add some more variety during runs!
World Map Changes
With bringing a new Career Mode, we're looking at some changes to the current World Map - The Grand Tour. Instead of the usual way of navigating to your chosen Sport & Biome, we'd look one big world instead, with different nodes to choose from - each node being a biome. We would have new ways of unlocking biomes, including through off-pistes, medals & trophies. Boss jumps would potentially move over to the new Career Mode instead of The Grand Tour, but this is something we are still looking at - whatever works best when we're testing everything out!
Multiplayer Game Modes
We're still working on new game modes for Multiplayer, and we're happy to say we've already made a lot of progress! Soon, we're going to start internally testing a Park Mode, Race Mode, and a mode called Follow the Leader. We'll be updating you with more in the coming months of course, but we are very excited for the future of Descenders Next! We appreciate how much you love a lot of the features from the original Descenders, so we can't wait to bring them all to you!
So, here's what we've dropped in the latest update:
Major Fixes:
We've addressed and updated the game to patch out the recent Unity security exploit
Major features:
You can now replay each tutorial individually
Minor features:
New type of off-piste node on the World Map
Spring Snows renamed to Spring Blossoms
New boss jump for Spring Blossoms
MB foot push animation for acceleration
Improved PostFX for each biome
Improved foliage textures
Motion Blur added
Improved padding tree spawning in Snowy Peaks
Improved skidding values for Snowboard and Mountainboard
Brake now cancels skidding
Objective: Finish without Braking
Objective: Finish without Bailing
Audio/SFX updates:
Revised 'Wasted' sfx
Pagoda shingles audio for Spring Snows boss
Bug fixes:
Fix Input: Input is analog now
Improved ragdoll bail behaviour
Timer no longer stops when bailed
We've also got a bunch of exciting things going on with Descenders - click here to read more about it!
Thank you for all of your support so far! We can't wait to bring you more exciting things to Descenders Next - do continue to send over your feedback, thoughts, and of course bug reports! We'll see you soon!