Ok, whilst the MARS 2.0 engine is looking good, I don't remember it looking this good... |
Sadly, The Winter Lords still doesn't have a playable build for us to play with, with Chris only showing off some more Tech demos of how the ships will look, and a rough glimpse at how the new system dynamic will play out as well. In fairness though, in person the MARS 2.0 Engine is looking quite good. Even back in 2006, MARS 1 could have been considered a little bit dated by modern standards, but having rebuilt the engine from the ground up, Kerberos have kept up to date with current rendering technologies, and whilst it may not be top of the range, it's still competitive.
Smooth lines, high-detail ship models... hell, you can even give individual ships names and it will appear on the side. A lot of work has gone into the details of ships, since they are basically the main element of the game. Ships have been made more modular as well, and will include more parts, and more hardpoints and elements to 'interact' with during combat (read: blowup). Ship classes have been tweaked, and a great emphasis has been placed on the larger ships.
Look at the hardpoints on this baby |
The only other big thing to talk about is the galaxy map. In a move similar to what Creative Assembly did in Empire: Total War, Kerberos have made a similar trade off: The galaxies themselves will be physically smaller, but each Star now has a whole system to explore. There will be a sun, planets, asteroids and other objects to control and interact with, which will do wonders for the strategic element of the game. How can you have front lines when you may not even be able to control a whole system, and the enemy can just go around you? Chris was showing off a tech demo of the system at GamesCom as well, and it looking impressive, but we'll need to see how it handles. This "Size to Detail" balance will need to be carefully tweaked so that games aren't too small.
Apart from that, a lot of the old-school Sword of the Star elements seem to be coming in. Tech trees will still be randomised, and they will be balanced as well so that you're never prevented from winning just because you don't have certain rare techs or anything like that. Due to the time progression, the technology levels have also progressed, so no need to re-invent stuff you were researching during the first game. The composition of systems, such as how many planets and other stellar objects will also be randomized, and you can now also create semi-autonomous 'provinces' within your empire when certain requirements are met. Above all, the game is going to stick to the core mantra - Easy to Play, Hard to Master.
I wouldn't want to meet this in a back alley |
Most Anticipated Feature: Too early to tell at this rate, but I reckon the improvements made to ship design might be a little bit special.