Firefall devs outline their milestone plans for early 2013

Red 5 have announced their early 2013 development roadmap for Firefall, the MMO shooter-meets-RPG-meets-RTS-meets-bug squashing simulator (MMOFPSRPGRTS?). It's a huge selection of high-level game changes being made across the board, including PvP rebalancing, bolstered enemy AI and a new system to help ease new users into the game's many features.

Full list below:

  • " Armies & Social Features: A team is dedicated to bringing basic army functionality to the game. This means things like army names, rosters, tags, chat channels, etc. The army tech tree and gameplay elements are further in the future."
  • " Matchmaking Team: This team is focused on fixing bugs and balance issues with the PvP matchmaking system. They are also reworking the challenge mode tool to make it easier to use and understand."
  • " New Objective Gametype/Map: We are working to create a new PvP gametype that focuses on a single objective to create something that more closely resembles a sport and provides fair and balanced gameplay."
  • " New User Experience: The New User Experience in Firefall is currently non-existent. We want to build a system that introduces new players to the game and helps them get introduced to the nuances of what makes Firefall great before they are thrown into the open world or PvP for the first time."
  • " Open World Content: This team is working on additional open world content that will help bring life to the world and create fun encounters for you to stumble upon or seek out."
  • " New Progression System: We are iterating on the existing progression system to create something that is easier to understand and more fun to use overall. This includes the split of crafted gear from PvP, but also many changes to the tier and constraints system."
  • " New Crafting System: The goal of the crafting team is to create a more engaging, easier to use crafting system with more depth to gameplay to really bring resources and crafting to the forefront of Firefall as it should be."
  • " Chosen Warfront: The Chosen Warfront team is back on the case making more changes to how the Chosen interact with the world and how engaging the overall war is to players."
  • " Chosen Combat: A separate team is working on making the Chosen more fun to fight through AI behaviors, animations, new types of Chosen, etc. If the Chosen Warfront team is focused on the macro-level gameplay, the Chosen Combat team is all about the micro-level gameplay."
  • " Multiple Freelancers: Multiple team members are working on things that don't require large teams and so they don't have a particular team name. Expect to see changes with Thumpers, customization, UI, and more."

The team plan to share more details on their progression and crafting changes soon. Firefall is currently in closed beta. You can sign up for beta access at the game's website .

Thanks, PCGamesN .

Phil Savage
Editor-in-Chief

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.