Mountaintop Studios announced a new developer update video for Specter Dividewhich offers a sneak peek at “Flashpoint,” the title’s first major seasonal content update. It will arrive in mid-February along with a version of the game for console players.

the three-versus-three multiplayer tactical shooter will debut worldwide on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S early next year. The game has an unusual anime art style and interesting tactics where players have a second body that they can deploy and move during a match. But the launch was difficult.

In addition to quality of life optimizations for PC players, Mountaintop is focusing on improving controller support for the PC and console versions. Weekly playtests for the feature are currently underway, and interested players can sign up here to participate.

Specter Divide looked promising as it appeared in the summer game and launched the title on August 1. But it has many bugs, including some that cause system crashes. The team has a layoff but there are many people working on it and trying to improve the experience of players, said Nate Mitchell, CEO of Mountaintop, in an interview with GamesBeat.

Mitchell, who is a cofounder of Oculus, started Mountaintop in 2020 with game designer Lee Horn and the title has been in the works for four years. Raised the top of the mountain $30 million and then silence as the team figured out what to do. They built a team of 70 people, and enlisted the help of gaming influencer Shroud, an expert gamer who helped them with features that players love. Their goal is to create a tactical shooter game that people will play for 10,000 hours.

I played the game and it reminded me of Counter-Strike, a game that the team loves. But it has a twist. In Specter Divide, Mountaintop does Duality, where you have two bodies controlled by one player. You can play as one character in a 3v3 match, and then place your second character in a strategic or secret spot by tossing a puck into the spot.

Then you can instantly switch between characters. If one of the ghosts is killed, you will automatically switch to another. You get the benefit of one mind, two bodies. This is an innovation that might just enable the game to gain its own audience of dedicated fans in the highly competitive FPS market.

A rough start

It was launched in early September, but, as it turns out, there are many problems. On September 26, the company laid off 13 of its people.

“It’s no secret, we got off to a rough start. The game crashed on launch day. It was brutal, especially for players who were really excited to play. We had performance issues, especially with a wider variety of hardware than we’ve tried,” Mitchell said. “In beta, we had more regions online, more people with networking challenges, connectivity challenges. We don’t have servers running all over the world. We heard that feedback loud and clear.”

After the layoffs, Mitchell said the company had to make adjustments with a smaller team. Its purpose is to focus on making a profit, which is necessary for a self-publishing indie studio, he said.

“We have to solve. We hope that’s better than breaking even to run the studio and run the game, but ultimately, we have to make a profit, and that’s really the focus for us. Next year we’re looking at how we can make sure we can keep the team we have.

There is also price feedback.

“The bones are the same, the core is the same, but everything is tuned and improved based on what the players want to see,” Horn said.

On Steam, the number of players is almost one million so far. Concurrency is down with about 1,000 players playing, compared to a peak of 81,000 four months ago, as the company slows its sales and is in the midst of overhauling the game. The team considered taking the game off the market but it saw that there are players who enjoy and run tournaments and therefore it doesn’t make sense to take the game away from them, Mitchell said.

Horn said, “We really want the players to know that we believe in the game and we’re working to improve it. And so by continuing to update it like we’re on Discord, they can chat with us, and we’re not going anywhere. We improve it every day.”

Gather again

The team’s goal is to make the title look like a new game when players return for Season 1, Horn said in an interview with GamesBeat.

“It’s not just a few tweets here and there. We spent a lot of time after launch listening to player feedback. And part of the reason we’re doing this is that we’re going to spend a lot of time making Season 1,” said said Horn. “It’s obvious that we have to do it in a big way with all the feedback and it feels like that’s a big change.”

“One of the biggest changes we’re really excited about is the addition of the sprint,” Horn said. “Anytime there’s a new movement mechanic, that’s a major shift in the game. One of the pieces of feedback we’ve gotten is that it’s slow to rotate and feels slow. We know that sprint opens up just in the game.

He added, “You get a lot more team play out of it, which is a little crazy to say from a mechanic, but the result is that your team is more united and you’re better able to support your team. You can flank and get into position, you can rotate and turn. We’re very excited about the sprint, and that’s like a great example of a feature that takes time to refine. We don’t want it to just jam there.”

New “Flashpoint” Season 1 Content

Like The Hunger Games, there are game sponsors who can send you items that can give you an advantage in battle. New for the update is Monark Tactical, and there’s a new map coming called Canal, which will allow the team to show off more of its sci-fi worldbuilding, Horn said.

There are also new characters, weapon skins, and cosmetics.

Horn said the sponsor will give you a “combat escape,” which is a shield that protects you while you activate it.

The company says the Season 1 Battle Pass offers tons of value including more than 70 total rewards. Players can get more than a dozen free items including four character outfits, two weapon skins, and 10 additional items.

There have been updates to the original maps to create better paths around where you expect the enemies to be and easier to read. And there is a big reduction in the price of cosmetics. Horn said the controller gameplay has been in the works for a long time and the team plays it all the time now. The company has decided that it is ready and therefore the controller will be available for the console or the PC versions.

Horn said the team has a good backend tool and it can see the crash rates and performance of different hardware specs. That will help identify problems. The company is also talking to players on Discord and Reddit. It also has a team of trusted playtesters who have been helping for a couple of years. The team has responded to thousands of reviews on Steam. Total reviews among 18,740 reviews were mixed, with a rating of three out of five stars.

More information on the launch of Flashpoint and Console will be shared in future updates, which will arrive early next year.

Under development

Here is a complete list of changes currently in development. This includes game health and quality of life updates, meaning fewer crashes. There is also a new “sprint” movement mechanic, fresh sandbox balancing, new economy tuning (where cosmetics are cheaper for each item than before), updated maps to improve gunplay and updated and improved base of face models.

On top of that, there’s the long-awaited “Career” tab, infrastructure improvements, client and server performance upgrades, improved networking and new server regions around the world, thousands of thousands of fixes shipped since launch based on player feedback, faster and more powerful combat. and motion and visual overhaul for more dynamic gameplay. Anti-cheat has gone through months of tuning and improvements that have made major gains in detection and banning. And the observer mode has been launched.

“We’re trying to be transparent with the players. We’ve been quiet. We’ve made a post saying, ‘Hey, we’re really going to focus on adding to the game.’ So the dev video is really about saying, ‘Look at all the things we’ve done. It’s a pretty extensive list,'” Mitchell said.