Rodeo Games has announced Hunters 2 (the sequel to Hunters Esp 1) on their facebook page this week. Here are few new things in the sequel due February/March 2012: Campaign mode Universal app New enemies races New environments New mission types, guns and gear Also, they built a flashy new graphics engine which can handle real-time dynamic lighting and other things Pictures can be found on their facebook wall
Looking forward to Hunters 2. The first had a lot of potential but got a little too ambitious and I'm sure Rodeo's switch to paid from free with IAP to unlock resulting in free full versions was the financial fail of the year.
More details then.. Hi all, I'm Ben Murch, the Creative Director over here at Rodeo Games. Next week we'll be launching our second game, Hunters 2. For those of you who don't know, Hunters is a Turn-Based-Strategy game along the lines of XCOM and Jagged Alliance, and board games like Space Hulk. As well as the turn based missions, you get to create and customise your team of Hunters, acquiring weapons, armour and talents as you level up. We've spent the last year re-vamping our game engine so it includes lots of graphical awesomeness like real time lighting and bespoke pixel shaders. We've also created an entire campaign mode to get your teeth into, following the story of our first hero character "Caius Black". Anyway, I wanted to jump on here to answer any questions people might have about the new game or Rodeo Games in general. In the meantime, here are some screenshots for you all to enjoy. Cheers, - Ben
Hoo boy, that looks awesome. I haven't played any of the games you've mentioned though, so I still have no idea how it will play.
Well... I won't say I wasn't disappointed by the unfulfilled dev promise of a campaign for Hunters I ( whatever happened to the whole "email us your character names and we'll put them in the new campaign as enemies" ? ) Having said that I can tell I'll be suckered into buying this one heh. Hope it gets better support. How many more melee weapons than the hammer this time around? Is there more variety with a weapon / armor class than the old worn -> experimental hierarchy? Are the more varied inventory items? How much larger are the talent trees? ( are they the same size )
@Echoseven Thanks! Give it a try when it comes out, I'm sure you'll like it! @Trystero Sorry about that. We fully intended to do short Campaigns for H1, then looked at the figures we were getting. They simply didn't add up. We could have made one or two single player add on campaigns, but the revenue they would have brought in wouldn't be enough to sustain the studio and we'd have gone bankrupt. Not good. Instead. There were also loads of elements we weren't happy with in the first game. For example, weapon and armour classes. So, we figured overhauling all those things and starting fresh would be a better basis to start the campaign from. Besides, who says those names aren't in the new game! In answer to your other questions.... Weapons are one of those things we've totally overhauled. They now fire individual shots which each has it's own chance of hitting. This makes certain guns (Assault Rifles which fire in bursts of 8 for example), more reliable than one shot weapons (Shotguns or hammers). However, if the latter do hit then they'll deal more damage! It's a trade off. Item qualities have also been re-done. Now weapons and armour have no level. Instead they have qualities ranging from white (common) through to orange (legendary). It's really interesting, because you can kit out a level 1 Hunter with Legendary equipment, if you have it in your inventory. However, you won't have any talents... ...and that's where the coolness is! Talents have also been re-vamped. Each Hunter now has access to a pool of "general" talents, as well as two unique trees. Unique trees are things like Combat, Support, Scouting, etc; and they really change the role that Hunter plays in the team. However, the coolest new change (in my eyes at least), is "Hardcore" mode. You can turn it on when you start a new game and the whole thing plays out the same, but with one difference... When one of your Hunters dies. They die. Forever! You lose their equipment. They're deleted from your roster. They are dead. Still want to give those legendary items to your Level 1 guy?
Hi Ben, Great news. Any new equipment for us to play around this time around? Or is it the same as in the first game? I'm specifically thinking of the scanners, which were one of my favorite pieces of equipment in the first game - they fully opened up the game after we got one. Congrats on the release date, can't wait to get my hands on the game!
Hunters always struct me as a great game engine in need of a real campaign. Now that it's getting one (with an improved engine to boot), I couldn't be more excited. Really looking forward to the release next week.
Hi pjft. Equipment has been rolled into the Talent points system. This time round you gain a talent point every time your Hunter levels up (Last time it happened at strange places)! Under the "General" talents section are things like medikits, stim packs, heavy weapon training, etc. Unfortunately, scanners haven't made a return. The consensus from lots of people last time was that they broke the game a little. Once we figure out how to do them properly, they might make a return. There's still plenty of new stuff to enjoy though. @squarezero Thanks! Really hope you enjoy it.
Hi Ben, Well, I'm sad to hear about the scanners. It's not that I can't see where those critics are coming from, but ever since Space Crusade that I rely on the passive scanner ability to plan out my approach to some tighter or unknown areas, and it adds an incredibly tactical feeling to the game... Well, I'm sure there was a lively debate about that, so I trust your judgement - but I'll most likely keep Hunters 1 around then, for the contracts Is there any relation between the contracts and the campaign, and if so could you discuss it a bit? Thank you!
@pjft Don't worry, there are plenty of things to discover in the new game that are waaaaay cooler than scanners! There's no real relation between the campaign contracts and daily ones, except that you use the same team. What we've found through Beta testing is that most people play a bit of the campaign, then complete some daily contracts to get credits and xp to level up. Then dip back into the campaign...and so on. It means there's always something different to do if you fancy a change.
@RodeoBenjamin Thanks for the reply. Thaat looks very cool. So you can level up your team in daily contracts, and then use the same team in the campaign! Counting the days to get my hands on it
First of all i really LOVE the first episode of your game. The gameplay and the skill tree system were really good. It seems you follow the same way for episode 2 and i'm looking forward to the final result ^^ However i have 2 questions : 1) Whats about an async multiplayer ? 2) Could you explain the hardcore mode ? Are the enemies more resilient or are you improving the AI ?
Oh man am I looking forward to this game! Quick question - I have an ipad 1 and an ipod touch 4G (both on iOS 5), will I encounter any problems playing this?
When you say out next week, are you doing the whole Weds 11pm launch thing for US east coast? Or it's with Apple and will release the minute they approve it? Hoping it drops on Monday for some completely selfish reasons heh
