Doubles Alpha!
We’ve been talking about it for a long time, we held internal tournaments for it, we even went and demoed it at PAX. But now, it’s time for all of you to finally get access to the alpha build for Doubles play!
There is a reason we’re calling it “Alpha” though, and that is because it is not nearly 100% what we consider a final feature in terms of usability, stability or polish. We are putting it out there today just because we believe it is very fun, even with potentially hideous crashes lurking behind every match.
Party up!
We’ve also added a “party” feature, which you need to use to team up with someone in order to access the doubles matchmaking queue OR the custom match feature.
In order to play doubles, you will first need to invite someone to your party, and then one of you needs to press “play doubles” to start the matchmaking process.
Important Notes:
- We’ve intentionally limited the party size to 2. In the future you’ll be able to set up custom 2v2 matches though!
- There is no guarantee that the XP, credits or ranking you get at the end of the match are accurate. We’re working on that. We hope to have separate singles and doubles ranking down the road.
- The UI for doubles is mostly the same as for 1v1. We know there are many potential improvements but we need your feedback first!
Custom Match returns
We have added the custom match screen, although now to set up a custom match you need to invite someone to your party first. If you’re not in party or not the host, the button will be disabled.
Map rotation
We appreciate all of you playing CHRONOS and all the feedback you gave us! For the time being, we are retiring CHRONOS from the Quick Play list again. The level will now only be accessible from Custom Match.
Also, the first 2v2 map is now available: Quantum Stadium. We hope you are able to play it and give us more feedback on how to make it as competitive as possible!
All characters are back
We’re done polishing the player models and animations, and as such they are available to pick again!
We’re sorry we had to take your faves away for so long :3
New “time loop” effects and feedback
We have iterated the sequence for the slowmo and rewind steps in the time loop. We believe they now look much cooler AND help make more sense of those sometimes confusing final milliseconds in matches.
Graphical improvements
- Exploded barrels no longer look like we forgot to texture them.
- Tweaked the Death post-process to be less invasive.
- Improvements to yellow barricade motion, it should now be much smoother.
- Reload animations now resume correctly from loop to loop.
Audio improvements
- We have overhauled the weapon sounds and several ambient sounds.
IMPORTANT REMINDER
As mentioned above, we consider this an Alpha version of 2v2 and parties. We are pretty much 100% sure some of you will encounter bugs or even crashes!
When that happens, please make sure to let us know about it in the #report-a-bug channel!
