Hey everyone,
This is Michael Tsarouhas or Mikee here, I’m the lead game designer on Insurgency: Sandstorm. Our team wants to let you know we have heard your feedback about our recent change where we removed weapons from the Security and Insurgent player classes in Co-op. We will be reverting to the prior Co-op loadouts, and in fact expanding them further. However, we would like you to at least understand the rationale for our initial decision. When we elected to remove the weapons, it was primarily based on our goal to create consistency between the Co-op and Versus experiences, and help with onboarding new players in our growing community. However, based on your feedback it seems clear that this concern about weapon consistency is not shared by the majority of players in our community, and that’s why we will be adding back the various weapons.
We have a hotfix already planned for Monday December 14th which will give all Co-op Security classes access to both the Security and Insurgent weapons within each class. This will make the weapon availability very similar to how it was before update 1.9, except for small differences such as the M16A4 no longer being available for Marksman. Keeping that particular aspect is in line with our original intentions with the weapon availability change as it’s important to keep some measure of consistency in player expectations between Versus and Co-op. For example, having the M16A4 be available as a Rifleman gun sometimes and as a Marksman gun at other times was confusing while offering little gameplay value.
We are also going to take things a step further. Based on your feedback, it’s apparent that our community would also appreciate more weapons being available for the Insurgent team in the Co-op experience. Now, instead of the Insurgent players in Co-op getting access to just a couple extra Security guns as they did before update 1.9, they will get access to all Security weapons within each of their classes. This will create more consistency within the Co-op experience itself and is also narratively appropriate with update 1.8’s introduction of rogue police and special operations teams to the Insurgents. Bear in mind that as with the M16A4 in Security Co-op being removed from Marksman class, the Mosin-Nagant will also be removed from Rifleman/Demolitions/Observer/Commander and kept exclusive to the Marksman.
Sometimes we make choices that seem clear to us but don’t make sense to our community. While we can’t promise to take our cues and direction from the community in every decision we make, your feedback definitely influences our decisions. We’re sorry if our choice with 1.9 was frustrating. Other than the removal of weapons, we hope you’ve been enjoying toggleable optics, the new map Bab, new weapons, and all the other changes Operation Cold Blood offers, and will do so even more after the hotfix on Monday.
Take care,
Mikee