Gigantic fans wondering when they’ll get their next chance to go hands-on with the in-development MOBA now have their answer thanks to a recent Reddit AMA with developer Motiga. The studio is hoping to go live with its next round of Gigantic beta testing sometime within the next few months.
“We are looking at an early-to-mid summer weekend public test with both Arc, Windows 10 and Xbox One,” Motiga VP of Operations Brian Knox wrote in a recent Reddit AMA. “We actually have our first Arc integrated build up and running for a Core playtest today, so we expect to be on track, but specific dates are still TBD.”
For the unfamiliar, Arc is a digital distribution platform from Gigantic‘s new publishing partner, Perfect World Entertainment, which supplanted Microsoft as publisher on all platforms. Knox says that despite the new partnership and plans to release on Arc, Motiga has not changed its plans for releasing on Microsoft platforms. “Microsoft is still our partner,” he wrote. “We are [console] exclusive on the Xbox One and will still be one of the first crossplay games with Windows 10.”
Though Motiga wasn’t ready to announce that crossplay between Xbox One and Arc players will make it into the final game, according to Knox the developer “would love for all platforms to be equally open to crossbuy and play. While he said the final decision is out of Motiga’s hands — likely meaning that it’s up to Microsoft and Perfect World — the studio is “looking at how best to implement” the feature.
Motiga first announced its partnership with Microsoft to bring Gigantic exclusively to Xbox One and Windows 10 in March 2015. The studio even kicked off a closed beta on those platforms back in August of 2015, and player feedback was generally positive. But the studio was forced to delay the game out of 2015 and into 2016 in December, the same month it laid off more than 25 percent of its workforce. Motiga laid off even more developers in February and ended Gigantic’s closed beta last month.
It’s fair then to ask what exactly went wrong, and one redditor did just that. Responding, Motiga CEO Chris Chung admitted that his studio “totally underestimated the development effort required to bring the game to a brand new platform.” Continuing, Chung said the developer overspent because it believed Gigantic had to meet the late 2015 launch date that it ultimately missed.
Some redditors expressed concern over this new partnership because of the way Perfect World has monetized previous free-to-play games in its portfolio. Chung downplayed the issue, stating that there would be no “paywall” in Gigantic. “Our monetization model will focus on creating a solid business without compromising the long term strategy.”
That being said, Motiga has not yet finalized how hero progression and unlocks will work. The closed beta featured a weekly rotation of six free heroes with all of their talents unlocked from the outset. Players could also use in-game currency to buy additional heroes. Progression Designer John Hargrove explained that while there are currently no plans to adjust the talent unlock and hero purchase system, the six free weekly hero system might change some before release as the studio is searching for a quicker way to let users discover the heroes that work best for them. Further, the number of total heroes in the final game is still not set in stone.
Speaking of the final version, while Motiga representatives elected not to provide a new release date, they did reaffirm that the plan is for Gigantic to release at some point in 2016.
Source: Reddit
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