Dear Darwin Project Community,
Darwin Project is available for free on PS4, Xbox One and PC/Steam and we are releasing today our first big patch since the official launch. From Battle Pass to balance changes, see what’s new below:
GAME CHANGERS:
Introducing our first Battle Pass event, titled Game Changers. The first Battle Pass since the official launch of Darwin Project, now available on PS4, Xbox One and Steam. Compete in the Arena to honor its newfound Sponsors and their (quite literally) game-changing Class Gear. The Battle Pass starts on Tuesday February the 25th at 12:00PM EST and will end on Tuesday April the 21st at 11:59AM EST after 8 weeks. Complete weekly challenges and earn experience to unlock exclusive cosmetics, fan gifts and ramen!
See the rewards and learn more at the Game Changers page.
Purchase the Battle Pass for 950 Ramens and start earning rewards today! Complete weekly challenges to receive more experience and up to 100 rewards. If you didn’t purchase the Battle Pass, don’t worry, all users can still grind through the 100 tiers available, unlock free rewards, and purchase the pass at any time of its duration to receive all rewards associated with your progress.
Game Changers’ Rewards:
Full Skins:
Unlock all new exclusive High-Tech skins based on former stars of the Arena - like the undaunted Vonrobo or the enigmatic Orboros! The new skins are available while progressing and reaching higher tiers in the Battle Pass.
Facepaints and Haircuts:
Earn exclusive facepaints and haircuts to honour the Arena’s sponsors with style.
Fan Gifts, Ramen and Battle Pass XP Boost:
You can earn other rewards by reaching specific tiers among the Battle Pass such as Fan Gifts (Some even guaranteed to drop an Epic or Legendary skin!), up to 1000 Ramen, and Battle Pass XP boosts allowing you to climb faster.
Weekly Challenges:
New challenges will unlock automatically every week, on Tuesday at 12:00PM EST, allowing you to reach higher tiers faster. All weekly challenges are the same for every player, independently if you purchased the Battle Pass or not, and will reward you with the same amount of experience. Note that weekly challenges can only be completed in public matchmaking and not in custom matches.
See the rewards and learn more at the Game Changers page.
The Class Menu:
In addition to the Battle Pass tab, you will notice a new tab available: the Class Menu. This tab will let you discover the lore of the Sponsors behind each class currently available as well as their current abilities and gear upgrades. Feel free to check it out to learn more about the classes without having to be in a lobby.
Competitive Players:
For those who are deeper into the competitive aspect of Darwin Project, we heard you. We know that many of you are waiting patiently to see the addition of Stats Tracking as an incentive to play competitively, which is scheduled for this Summer (ICYMI: our 2020 Roadmap is available here).
Why we decided to add Stats Tracking at that time:
Despite the stats and leaderboards being available during Early Access, we needed to rework them on several technical and design aspects in order to make them relevant for Darwin Project. The class system, the rework of the UI, and the fact that we added a new platform on which Darwin Project is now available, meant a significant amount of dev time. With the size of the team, we could not do it simultaneously with the Battle Pass and Duos mode. This is why, in order to produce something that would reach the quality we aim for, we decided to produce the Stats Tracking for this Summer only.
Don’t worry, we have been working on something that will be a good incentive for competitive and dedicated players to train for. We will be sharing more details very soon. Stay tuned!
MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES:
This update also includes some bug fixes, gameplay and balancing changes.
Find the full list below:
GAMEPLAY AND BALANCING CHANGES:
- Decreased snowball cold damage from 20% to 10% of max cold
- Decreased Icebolt ability cold damage from 60% to 30% of current cold
- Decreased Icebolt ability duration from 4-6s to 3-5s
Dev comment: Death by cold turned out to be way more common that we intended so we’re decreasing the player capacity to inflict cold damage.
- Decreased arrow craft time from 2s to 1.5s
- Decreased fire craft time from 2s to 1.5s
Dev comment: Arrow and fire craft time felt too slow compared to the overall pace of the game.
- Decreased headhunter drone death time from 15s to 10s
Dev comment: The headhunter drone happens to be destroyed often, especially during melee combat. Reducing its downtime will make the class less vulnerable.
- Replaced turret with teleport on headhunter drone class
Dev comment: The addition of the Teleport ability will help those who choose it make better use of the map’s verticality.
- Reduced Jetwings Air dash speed by 7.5%
Dev comment: Even with the previous changes, the air dash felt too difficult to counter. Lowering its speed will make it easier to react to.
- Increased Meteor ability speed by 15%
Dev comment: Increasing Meteor speed allows players to combine it with an axe swing more efficiently.
- Increased Barrier ability cooldown from 20s to 30s
Dev comment: The effectiveness of the barrier combined with its low cooldown made it a bit too powerful, increasing its cooldown should make it more balanced compared to the other abilities.
- When killed, inmates now drop a minimum of 5 wood instead of 3
Dev comment: Some combat encounters can last several minutes and 3 wood felt a bit underwhelming as a reward.
- Decrease forbidden zone exponential cold timer from 60s to 15s
- Increased forbidden zone exponential cold by 40%
Dev comment: After spending 15s (previously 60) in a forbidden zone, the cold is becoming more intense every second. These changes aim to prevent players from staying in forbidden zones way longer than it was intended to.
- Added a preview system when placing turret or traps
- Removed packs from deer loot table
- Added 3 arrows drop in deer loot table
- Increased glider drop rate in both deer and loot chest
- Jetwings “Death from above” gear upgrade now only works if the arrow is fired while hovering instead of falling
OTHER CHANGES:
- Added a FOV slider (pc only)
- Added an option to deactivate the dynamic camera (pc only)
- Improved multiple controller force feedback
- Improved destruction and targeting visual effects of Turret ability
- Optimized arrow and axe visual effects
- Improved impact visual effects on barrier and lockdown abilities
- Improved audio and visual effects when attacking AI and Deer
- Revised lockdown and turret colors to differentiate your own from an enemy's
BUG FIXES:
- Fixed Jetwings “Thruster speed” gear upgrade text that was not indicating a correct value
- Fixed Jetwings “Fuel efficiency” gear upgrade text that was not indicating a correct value
- Fixed some missing textures from environment assets
- Added missing collision to the lake at the top of Yonder Canyon
- Fixed an issue that would cause the rarity of items to not be displayed when opening a fan gift
- Fixed multiple text that were not translated
- Fixed an issue that caused Captain Darwin's fuel bar to turn red when using the drone or the gauntlet
- Fixed an issue allowing players to duplicate inventory items
*Note that the bug fixes list is non exhaustive, a lot of other issues have also been fixed.
Enjoy the Game Changers seasonal event, honour the sponsors and remember: SURVIVE!
Thanks for your support!
Scavengers Team