Developer Diary Video

Here at Tripwire Interactive we’re incredibly excited that Red Orchestra 2 won PC Gamer’s Multiplayer FPS of the Year. And we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate this than to give away a free content pack for the game to everyone that owns it. So we’re very pleased to announce the Red Orchestra 2 Game of the Year Edition featuring an amazing new map, diverse new game modes and a host of new features. The GOTY Edition Free Content Pack will download automatically for everyone who already owns the game – and, so everyone else can try the full game, Red Orchestra 2 will be available completely free to play for everyone on Steam this weekend, starting Thursday 24 May 2012 at 10AM Pacific Time. The content pack will be released before the free weekend starts.

The content pack additions include:

• “Action” mode – Featuring a crosshair, easier aiming and toned down recoil, reduced damage and open access to a wide range of weaponry Action mode is the perfect first step for players into the world of Red Orchestra.
• “Classic” mode blends the gameplay innovations of the new game with the tactical and edgy gameplay of the original giving the fans of the first game exactly what they want.
• Mamayev Kurgan – complete new map, featuring both close-quarters battles in trenches and bunkers, as well as longer ranged combat across the famous hill in Stalingrad
• Refined and improved gameplay across the board, vehicle improvements, and way better performance and polish. We listened to the community and based on their feedback refined and tweaked almost every major feature in the game!

To remind everyone: there is a free weekend coming 24 May! You can grab the game from Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/35450/)starting at 10 AM Pacific Time this Thursday, so don’t forget and tell your friends. The free weekend ends Sunday 27 May so don’t miss your chance to try the game for free!

Discuss on the forums ->

Now that we’ve given you a first look at our plans for “RO Classic” we would like to fill the community in on what we have in the works for the coming months for RO2. First we would like to talk about how we’ll be handling the PR and the development of the updates that we are working on. Traditionally we’ve worked like a typical game studio slaving away for months on a cool update which we would reveal to the press and the community close to the release date when it is almost finished. This is a great way to get press attention and spread news about the update to the broader gaming world. Unfortunately, it also has the side effect of the community not knowing what we are working on, and being unable to have their feedback incorporated into the update BEFORE the release. So with that in mind we’ve decided to do an experiment involving our community of Red Orchestra fans that will be a much more collaborative process of development and PR.

What this means is that first we are switching up to a very open PR style, pushing lots of information out for you and seeking feedback from you all, much as we did back in the Red Orchestra mod days. This is to make sure players are more aware of upcoming changes and means you get to see stuff while it is still work in progress (WIP). We’ll also be running a Beta open to anyone that owns RO2 that we’ll be using to push out these new features and improvements early on in the development process. We’ll tell you what we have in mind, show it to you as it comes together and let you try it out early in development, so that we can get good feedback, when we still have time to react to it. Of course, showing you things that early means that they are definitely subject to change too – from your feedback and from our own. It also means you will get to see things in the beta that are very early in development and potentially incomplete. So don’t be surprised if you jump into a map in the beta that isn’t pretty, or try a new feature that isn’t balanced or complete. You’ll get to see that map or feature come together, and participate in the process.

So, here is the “big picture”. We’ve got a big update coming for the game, with a lot of content. We’ll fill you in on the details over the coming days. That will lead us pretty much straight up to all the pieces of that update being pushed into the open Beta, so that everyone can get a look and try them out, while they are still in development. Bug fixes, optimizations, and refinements will be brought over from the Beta to the live game as soon as they are ready. Major new features will be pulled together into that one big update for you. The key elements of the update include (and we’ll push out lots of details on all these over the next few days):

• Multiplayer Campaign Mode
• We’ll have a complete new map for you
• “RO Classic”, that we’ve already talked about
• Major refinements to existing gameplay systems to improve the gameplay balance and fun as well as to incorporate player feedback (systems such as Lockdown, Player Damage, and more are being refined)
• And, of course, we’ll continue fixing bugs that we (or you) find and making optimizations to the game

So, stay tuned over the next few days as we look to give you more detail on all of this! And watch for announcements as features roll out into the Beta for you to try out and feedback on.

Discuss on the forums ->

Well, we knew we were good… after making the PC Gamer Top 100 Games of all time, we now have Red Orchestra 2 in as PC Gamer’s “First-Person Shooter of the Year (Multiplayer)”. Read about it over on the PC Gamer website: HERE. We’re happy about it, to say the least!

Discuss on the forums ->

The Scorched Earth Tournament for RO2 has the final 4 teams closing in on the big prize money – a total of $12,000. With the Superbowl out of the way, this week we have the divisional play-offs for Scorched Earth, to find the best team in Europe and the best in North America. The two winning teams will progress to the grand final for the shot at the World Title and the big cash prize!

First up, on Wed 8th Feb, at 8pm in the UK [9pm Central European, 3pm Eastern], is the European Division Championship match where Enclave face off against DoublePenetration. Both teams have put out some old favorites, so we’ll see which of them makes it to the World Championship match!

And, following up on Sun 12th Feb, at 9pm Eastern [6pm Pacific, in the wee small hours of Friday morning in Europe], we have the North American Division Championship. Team Chaos take on Hardcore North America for the title – and their own shot at the big prize.

The matches will be broadcast live (with a small delay just in case anyone needs to bleep out a nipple slip, or stray middle finger). Details HERE: http://www.forgottenhonor.com/scorchedearth/live/livestream/. And the hashtag for the twitter conversation will be #fhscorchedearth. Get tweeting!

Get out there and support your team – the hono(u)r of whole cultures is at stake here! Along with $12,000…

Discuss on the forums ->

Now, while we sincerely hope that no-one ever gets a crash in RO2, ever, we are realistic and do know that it will happen from time to time. In the past, we’ve always asked for crash logs and other info – after the next RO2 update, it will be automated for you.
It should be straight-forward enough, if it happens to you – and it will make our QA department’s life much simpler, too. So, don’t worry, it is NOT some evil virus!

For more details, see the forum post ->