In Part 2 of our interview with Jared Gerritzen, we discuss the introduction of "mechs"--better known as Hardsuits--into the world of Blacklight, what the team plans to do with post-launch support, and we also answer a few of your questions from Twitter.
RA: Customization was one of the biggest features of the original Blacklight--is there
anything new to that feature that players can expect?
JG: We’ve added even more customization to the weapons and more weapons to customize. The big new customization systems we’ve added are player character customization and class customization. Player can now build any armor and look for their player as well as the style of class to they want to play. A player can make a super heavy armored sniper, or a fast and agile engineer. We want to let the player tune their experience to how they want to play.
RA: Will Blacklight: Retribution feature any destructible environments?
JG: Destructible environments are so last year (ha-ha). People used that as a crutch to have less gameplay. Every game with this feature ended the round in the same state every time: the environment flattened, and there was ZERO cover, with snipers sitting in the back of each map taking out anyone that sticks their head out. Blacklight is a game designed around speed and moving. We want the players to move so much that we added a design system that kills any form of camping, called HRV. HRV gives you full combat awareness; it is a legalized wall hack that lets you see all your teammates, all major objectives, and all you enemies.
"WHAT!?" You say you added this? Yes, Blacklight: Tango Down had it and it was a massive success and really gave the game a big dose of speed. You no longer have guys sitting in the back of the map camping, but rather, they get hunted down and killed.
RA: How do "mechs" change the world of Blacklight? What can you tell us about how players will interact with them? Are they customizable too? And if so, to what extent?
JG: We are all huge fans of the Hardsuits; you buy them in the Weapon Depots and have to call them in via airdrop and laser designators. Once it lands you can really put a hurting on the other team. It’s a big bad "mech" with a chain gun on one arm and a rail gun (it shoots enemies and is great for Hardsuit vs Hardsuit battles) on the other. You would think that would break the game, and we’ve worked hard not having this happen. Each Hardsuit comes with a randomly generated weak point. Players use HRV to find the weak point and can then take it down with small arms fire. Or, they can guy buy a big badass weapon from the Weapon Depot and wage war against the Hardsuit with rocket launchers, flamethrowers, air strikes or any other goodies they find in the depot. Hardsuits are very fun to play in and against.
RA: Blacklight: Retribution is going to be free, so does that mean gamers should expect the dreaded "premium" downloadable content post-launch? Will there be any post-launch support?
JG: Post-launch support is why we went Free-to-Play. With Blacklight: Tango Down we wanted to release patches, updates and more content to keep the game alive and going, but some publishers think once a game is out that that is the end of the game. Lucky for us (and our players) our new publisher is fully behind supporting the community and the game with new maps [aiming to have two new maps a month], weapons, gear and even features after we launch. We plan on putting out new content every month [all of which will be free] as well as patches, fixes and tweaks. To make a great mulitplayer game you need patches and new items to keep the fans happy and keep them coming back. We have the first year-after-ship already loosely designed. We're very excited to get the game out to see what else fans want and what they think.
We've got a couple questions from people on Twitter:
L4zyGaming asks, "will they implement hit markers? What about spawn killing? Will spawns be rotated around the map?
JG: We have added hit markers and spawn killing is a thing of the past.
JohnnyRelvas also harkens back to the spawn system with his question: "Yeah! Ask them is there is weapon camo and how the SPAWN SYSTEM WILL WORK!"
JG: The weapon camo will return and is now on our secondary weapons. I hope I answered the spawning question.
We certainly want to thank Jared Gerritzen for taking the time to answer our questions regarding Blacklight: Retribuiton. If you missed Part 1 of this interview, you can see that right here, and be sure to head back to RespawnAction.com as we will surely post any new information about Zombie Games' new title.
