One of the Developer Sessions onstage today at EGX was from Frontier, as they talked about the development process of Planet Coaster, both what they’d already been through and what was still to come in the game.

The game at its basic level is a theme park designer, utilising paths, rides, shops and other things to make money from guests. The game had been in Alpha this year from March until around Gamescom and the team talked about how the community had helped them shape the game. They gave examples of when feedback from the community playing the game made the revise new updates to the game, such as when height limits were imposed on roller coasters for gameplay and cost sake, they eventually reversed it because the community overwhelmingly asked them to remove it again.

They spoke about the future of what they wanted the game to be, with one big thing being that they wanted a game that had a community sharing maps with each other through the cloud and especially Steam Workshop. Already when an alpha update removed some basic toilets from the set of buildings available, someone had remade them and put them into the Workshop shortly after. They showed off that the game would contain transport rides to enable guests to go further into the park quicker and also reduce some of the traffic of footpaths, some of the pieces for the new Sci-Fi theme (although they did say that it wasn’t quite finished yet) and spoke at great length about how they really wanted people who played the game to play around with the concepts and create their own ‘themes’ for their parks. They also said that while they wouldn’t be putting in patrol zones, they would make the AI for entertainer staff much more intelligent to stop them either leaving the park altogether or clogging up the entrance ways and stopping people moving into the park.

Of course, the crowning jewel of the presentation was one trailer in which Frontier demonstrated that yes, this is very much like theme park builders of the past:

Planet Coaster will be coming out towards the end of this year, on November 17th. Can’t wait to try this one out.

Spilt Milk Studio were one of the people who have a developer session today at EGX, using the time to talk about their new free-to-play MMO that was in beta now – Lazarus.

Lazarus is a space MMO roguelike, with the unique property of the game world having a reset every week. This means from week to week the things needed to survive will change, and most stuff will not be permanent – although some elements will be and will be carried over from week to week.

During the session there was a lot of talk about how they came to be doing a free-to-play MMO in space, with references back to Spilt Milk’s last well-known game release Tango Fiesta. They spoke about how they wanted to do early access and therefore wanted to have a game that would be better suited to this, as they had learned that Tango Fiesta was not the right sort of game for that. They also spoke about wanting to do multiplayer better this time around.

About the decision to introduce a weekly reset into the game, they spoke about how off-putting it could be to come into a big multiplayer world of an MMO late – something that I can see the point of. The weekly reset will ensure that no one is too far ahead of everyone else and will help the studio keep control of the game – after all as we were told throughout the session only 4 people are working on this new game. Those people? Andrew, Andrew, Andrew and… Steve.

As of yet the game is still being tweaked with feedback from the community the game is building during its alpha and now beta stage, so not everything is set in stone. One thing that has been said though is that unlocks for upgrades and bought credit balances will not be reset every week, and that as a free-to-play the game will be offering customisation and cosmetic items for real money purchase such as skins for player ships. In fact, signing up for the game on the game’s site will net you one skin for free.

We were very interested in the look of this game, so we’ll be keeping an eye on Lazarus.

The Division is getting a big overhaul soon with update 1.4. Ubisoft is trying to make the game more challenging, and to pull that off it sounds like all gear, armor, weapons and skills are open for big changes. While the entire post over on the website is pretty involved, we can hit the high points briefly to give an idea of what it is Ubi is trying to accomplish.

“One issue facing The Division today is that the power difference between optimized and non-optimized builds is too great. We still want people to optimize their gear and min-max to their heart’s content, but in order to balance the game, we need to reduce the gap between the two extremes. As part of Update 1.4 we also want to bring back the shooter feeling, add more decision making and hard choices when building your character and add more variety to the viable builds.”

Gear

• All World Tier 2 and higher gear will have stats for Firearms, Stamina and Electronics
• Stat overlaps between gear have been removed
• Gear scores will be adjusted to match High end gear scores withing the same World Tiers
• All gear will lose their skill bonuses.
• Backpacks, holsters and knee pads will gain new performance mod slots

Weapons

• New DPS formula on weapons has been introduced, but is a work in progress and will change over the course of the PTS.
• The damage and roles of certain weapons have been changed. Some weapons have seen a damage increase; others have had their damage lowered.
• Named weapons will not be changed in this update.
• Weapon mods will now come with one major bonus and an amount of smaller bonuses, depending on the quality of the mod.
• Damage bonuses are now additive instead of multiplicative, reducing the current spikes in damage which made the game hard to balance.
• The Firearms stat will become a much more significant source of damage output, leading to more decision making when building your character.
• Weapon talents have been rebalanced; some have been buffed, others have seen their numbers reduced.

Skills

• Electronics will be the main source of Skill Power.
• Skill Power will not scale linearly anymore, instead it will follow a curve of diminishing returns.
• Certain skills are currently much more popular than others. Some skills are overpowered, others underpowered or bugged.
• Skills have been rebalanced to fit the new game balance or to bring them up to par, in the hopes of creating a more varied meta.
• First Aid no longer allows for multiple heals, since those happened due to a bug. First Aid’s healing has been increased to make up for this fix. It will now heal instantly.
• Smart Cover and Pulse have been reworked. Smart Cover is now more defensive and Pulse’s high damage boost has been lowered to make it balanced with the new enemy health.
• Ballistic Shield and Support Station have been given more health. Support Station’s healing has been increased.
• Many bugs associated with skills have been fixed.

There are a lot more changes, and I’d recommend digging into the complete post if you are a serious player of The Division. No word on when update 1.4 will be released for all platforms, but if you play on PC the Public Test Server is up and running as we speak.

Today was the first day of the EGX Developer Sessions, and the first thing to take to the stage was an indie title from studio Tarsier Studios – Little Nightmares.

Originally revealed at Gamescom a month ago, Little Nightmares is a suspense-adventure game in which you control the protagonist in her bid to make it through and escape the floating, travelling location of The Maw – a place that draws in people to offer them the fulfillment of their desires. Some remain stuck there though, as prisoners and our protagonist aims to not become one of them.

Speaking of our protagonist, we play as a young child called ‘Six’ throughout the presentation, a small figure in a yellow raincoat. The world around her is full of strange things that she doesn’t understand and that are larger than her, but with some clever thinking and manipulation of objects she may just make it out from The Maw.

The game presented on screen was one that out sized Six greatly, and this was deliberate as it was explained that they had hoped to catch the perspective of childhood – one of uncertainity, size, fear, but also playfulness and adventure. You can move objects around and some you can even break. The aesthetics of the game in both visuals and sound try to keep up an atmosphere that is suspenseful, slightly creepy but not overly horror-themed. The strange world around Six is meant to depict only that she is of an age where not everything yet makes sense to her and it shows.

With a lighter to light the way and a few lanterns, and a whistle to attract things towards her, it’s easy to see that this game’s puzzles will take some figuring out and there is a story waiting to be discovered inside The Maw as you progress. Look forward to this game coming out some time in the Spring of next year.

I’m sure it’s not too long ago that GTA Online had an update for CEO shenanigans… although apparently it was a few months ago. either way, it seems enough time has passed that Rockstar are ready to release yet another big update to the game, this time focused around bikers, their vehicles and all the things biker-related.

This will give players the chance to form their own Motorcycle Clubs, with up to eight players per group. There will be roles for all, from Prospects who are fresh to the club President right at the top. It will also bring (unsurprisingly) new bikes and properties to the game – but also some new co-op and competitive gameplay as well.

“Beyond a range of opportunities to climb the ranks within a gang and build lucrative businesses as a formidable MC, Bikers also includes a selection of appropriately-themed new modes for bikers of all kinds, along with new weapons, styles, tattoos and features to make this a huge addition to the world of GTA Online. And while loyal MCs will fight to expand their foothold alongside black-collar CEOs and Organizations, there’s always another opportunity to make your mark just around the corner. Keep an eye out for high-level, high-risk vehicle based business ventures to spring up across Los Santos and Blaine County soon.”

These new places will be Clubhouses with biker mechanics available as well as some dodgy businesses.

No release dates yet, but keep your eyes open for this one. As if GTA Online wasn’t noisy enough with all the explosions and jets nosediving into the ground…