Automaton lifts the lid on Mavericks: Proving Grounds' impressive tech

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There's a closed beta set for this Summer.

Announced at the PC Gamer Weekender a couple of days ago, Mavericks: Proving Grounds is a massively ambitious 1000-player MMO that will also find the time to cram in a 400-player Battle Royale mode, which will launch first. There's no real footage yet, but in the first of two highlight videos from the PCG Weekender, Automaton Games' James Thompson offers a glimpse of the enormous 16km map we'll be able to explore, while going into detail on some of the technical wizardry that's making it all possible.

Automaton basically sees this as the "next generation" of MMO, something it's achieved via a network of servers, allowing for millions of entities inside a single game. Other similar titles, Thompson argues, compromise the depth of the simulation for the sake of scale, but he says that won't be the case with Mavericks.

The other element Thompson wishes to stress is Mavericks' approach to level design. Rather than just procedurally generating a map and being done with it, he says that the team is taking the time to craft a "holistic" world that will make for better tactical options. He goes on to explain how Mavericks uses advanced photogrammetry to present a realistic environment that will apparently look exceptional at any time of day, and during any weather condition, while at the same time allowing for a high level of destructibility.

We'll surely see more of the game before its closed beta this Summer, but until then, you can learn more about Mavericks from our recent announcement post.

Tom Sykes
Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.