Mountaintop Studio an update video announced a new developer for Spectator Departmenttakes a closer look at “Flashpoint,” the first major season of the title update content. It's coming in mid-February along with a version of the game for console players.
The a three-versus-three multiplayer tactical shooter debuting worldwide on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S early next year. The game had an unusual anime art style and interesting tactics where players had a second body that they could use and move towards the game. But the launch was tough.
In addition to quality-of-life optimizations for PC players, Mountaintop has focused on improving controller support for both the PC and console versions. Weekly playtests for the action are currently underway, and interested players can sign up here to participate.
Specter Divide looked promising because it revealed the game this summer and launched the title on August 1. But there were a lot of bugs, including some that caused system crashes. The team had a hiatus but a lot of people are still working on it and trying to improve the player experience, said Nate Mitchell, CEO of Mountaintop, in an interview with GamesBeat.
Mitchell, a former Oculus co-founder, started Mountaintop in 2020 with game designer Lee Horn and the title has been in the works for four years. A mountain top was built $30 million and then they went quiet as the team worked out what to do. They built a team of 70 people, and were supported by gaming influencer Shroud, an experienced gamer who helped them with features that players would love. Their goal was to build a tactical shooter that people would play 10,000 times.
I played the game and it was reminiscent of Counter-Strike, a game the team loved. But there was a twist. In Specter Divide, Mountaintop created Duality, where you have two factions controlled by one player. You can play as one character in a 3v3 match, then place your second character in a strategic or secret location by throwing a puck at the location.
Then you can switch between characters instantly. If one of the sky is killed, you will automatically move to the other. You get the benefit of one mind, two bodies. It is an innovation that could allow the game to capture its own audience of dedicated fans in the highly competitive FPS market.
A rough start
It was launched in early September, but, as mentioned, there were several problems. On September 26, the company fired 13 of its people.
“It's no secret, we started very hard. The game went down on the opening day. That was brutal, especially for players who were really happy to play. We had performance issues, especially on a wider variety of hardware than we tested,” Mitchell said. “In the beta, we had more categories online, more people with networking challenges, connectivity challenges. We were not running servers around the world. We heard that feedback loud and clear. “
As a result of the layoffs, Mitchell said the company had to do the solutions with a smaller team. His goal is to focus on getting to profitability, which is essential for a self-publishing indie studio, he said.
“We have to put our heads together. Hopefully that's better than having to run the studio and run the game, but at the end of the day, we've got to make some profit, so it's that's really the focus for us. In the next year we are looking at how to make sure we can maintain the team we have.”
There was also price feedback.
“The bones are the same, the heart is the same, but everything has been fine-tuned and developed according to what the players want to see,” Horn said.
On Steam, the number of players has been around a million so far. The concurrency is low with around 1,000 players playing, compared to a peak of 81,000 four months ago, as the company has delayed its marketing and is in the middle of its ' to fix a game. The team considered taking the game off the market but they saw that there were players who were having fun and running tournaments so it didn't make sense to take the game away from them, said Mitchell.
Horn said, “We really want players to know that we believe in the game and that we are trying to improve it. And so by continuing to update it like we're here on Discord, they can chat with us, and we're not going anywhere. We are improving it every day.”
Reorganizing
The team's goal was to make the title feel like a new game when players returned for Season 1, Horn said in an interview with GamesBeat.
“It's not just a couple of tweets here and there. We've spent a lot of time post-launch listening to player feedback. And part of the reason we did this is because we're going to take a little more time to do Season 1,” Horn said. “It was clear that we had to do it in a big way that really hit all the feedback and felt like a big change. “
“One of the changes we're most excited about is that we're adding sprint,” Horn said. “Any time there's a new movement mechanic, that's a major game changer. One piece of feedback we got was that it was slow to rotate and felt sluggish. We found that sprint just opens the game. “
He said, “You actually get more team play out of it, which is a crazy thing to say from a mechanic, but the net result is that your team is together the more you can support your team. You can side and get into position, you can circle and get behind. We're excited about sprint, and that seems like a good example of a feature that takes some time to update. We don't want to just put it in there.”
New “Flashpoint” Season 1 content
As in The Hunger Games, there are sponsors in the game that can send you items to give you an advantage in battle. Monark Tactical is the new one for the update, and there's a new map coming called Canal, which will allow the team to show off more of their sci-fi world-building, Horn said.
There are also new characters, weapon skins, and cosmetics.
Horn said the supporter will give you “combat escape,” which is a shield that can protect you while you activate it.
The company said that the Season 1 Battle Pass offers tons of value including over 70 total rewards. Players can earn over a dozen free items including four character outfits, two weapon skins, and 10 additional goodies.
There are updates to the original maps to create better paths around where you expect enemies to be and more legibility. And there will be a big reduction in the price of cosmetics. Horn said the control game has been in the works for a long time and the team plays with it all the time now. The company decided it was ready so the controller can be used for the console or the PC versions.
Horn said the team has good backend tools and can see crash rates and performance on different hardware specifications. That helps identify problems. The company also communicates with players on Discord and Reddit. There is also a group of trusted players who have been helping for two years. The team has responded to thousands of Steam reviews. Total reviews among the 18,740 reviews are mixed, with a rating of three out of five stars.
More details about the Flashpoint and Console launch will be shared in future updates, coming early next year.
Under development
Here is a full list of changes currently in development. They include game health and quality of life upgrades, meaning fewer crashes. There's also a new “sprint” movement mechanic, a new sandbox rebalance, a new economy tweak (where cosmetics cost much less per item than before), updated existing maps to make gunplay development and updated and improved front-end models.
In addition, the long-awaited “Jobs” tab, infrastructure improvements, client and server performance upgrades, improved networking and new server regions around the world, thousands of solutions have been improved since launch based on player feedback, faster and smarter combat. and motion and visual overhaul for a more dynamic game. Anti-counterfeiting has undergone months of refinement and advancements making significant gains in detection and prevention. And the spectator mode has begun.
“We are trying to be transparent with players. We have been rather quiet. We made a post that basically said, 'Hey, we're going to really focus on adding to the game.' So the dev video is really to say, 'Look at what we're doing. It's a pretty extensive list,'” Mitchell said.
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