Vigor - Season 9: Stalkers!
Hei Outlanders!
It's August already (yes, already!) and you know what that means? It's our anniversary this week! We are celebrating our second birthday and we couldn't be happier to share our excitement and gratitude with a release of a new Season and a few other cool things (we'll get to that in a bit). But before we jump into what's in store for Season 9, let's take a look at what happened during Season 8 shall we?
With Season 8, back in April, we introduced a new group of Outlanders called Trappers who live in harmony with nature and can be identified by animal face paints, subtle colors, and inventive backpacks. We brought a new Battle Pass with two new packs, the premium Hunter Pack for $69.99 and the Prey Pack for $19.99. Season 8 saw the addition of a new weapon, the PH M82 sniper rifle, as well as 2 POIs (Loot Events) in every Encounter! After all of that, update 8.1 in late June saw the introduction of the Legacy Seasons. If you're not sure what Legacy Seasons are, you can read about them extensively in our update blog. Besides Legacy Seasons, update 8.1 had the "Thank You Charity Pack" similarly to last year and some pesky bugs like the weapon crosshair bloom bug, the bug where your weapon gets jammed after shooting the locked container, the rapid fire glitch and the compass issue were fixed.
Now then, let's move onto the good stuff shall we?
Season 9: Stalkers
We heard your feedback wanting the next season to me more military oriented and with darker shades of clothes. We heard you and we're proud to introduce to you this military/apocalyptic side of the Outlands.
The Stalkers are the children of the apocalypse. They were born to survive the Outlands and you can recognize them by their gas masks, muzzles, rusted weapons and their hauntingly glorious title! They also come equipped with grenades and the formidable A74-KSU so shadow them across the land and discover all the enhancements they bring.
The Next Big Thing Has Arrived...
Grenades are finally here! We know you've been asking them for a long but the wait is finally over. Some players might even remember when we had back in the very early stages of the game's development but we decided to remove them, do a complete overhaul on them and re-introduce them once they were ready. And now's the time!
First of all, they are fragmentation or "frag" grenades, meaning that if one explodes close to you, you can die instantly! Since they are "Special Issue" rarity that means you can only carry 2 into an Encounter. They are the perfect tool to force out other players who might be hiding out inside a house or an advantageous point. They can help in situations when you feel like you might be walking into an ambush and so you can throw a grenade preemptively and if there's someone waiting for you, it will get them moving. Basically, you can go into the Encounters better prepared for these kinds of stalemate situations. Ultimately, they will bring some versatility and will allow players to pursue a faster-paced game style so make sure to use them whenever you find the opportunity.
You can throw a grenade inside a house from an open window or through a glass! You can also choose how you want to throw the grenade - if you're going for a long throw, an arch will appear to show you the trajectory of the grenade (be careful of any obstacles along the way, as the grenade can bounce off objects) or you can opt for a close-range quick throw. In case you're wondering if an Armor Plate can save you from a grenade the answer is no! But if someone throws a grenades close you, the game will show you a warning signal giving you some precious seconds needed to escape the blast range with in one piece.
One of the struggles with the development process for the grenades was the fact that we don't have any animators on the Vigor team, so we had to work with the existing animations that we had. Thankfully, one of our scripters, who is really skilled at animating stuff, was able to take our existing animations and make them look more natural and smooth.
Now's The Time To Try Elimination Mode
We decided to give some love to the Elimination mode with this Season, which is why a lot of important changes were made. First and foremost, we switched off team killing!
Hooray! On top of that, we added more weapon load outs before each round. Last but not least, we’re introducing an Elimination crate as a reward, similar to the Shootout crate!
Here’s how the Elimination crate works. Each member of the winning team will receive one Elimination crate, as well as XP rewards based on their score. The only way you will not receive any rewards is if you keep shooting your teammates, which will result in 0 XP and no crate. The Elimination crate has 6 slots, each one representing a different item you can receive. That includes weapons, consumables, materials, crowns and cosmetics.
"What if I'm on the losing team?" Don't worry, you won't leave empty handed! If your score is over 1000, you will receive a common crate, as well as an XP reward to compensate your time spent in Elimination mode. The XP reward applies to all team members, except for those with a score less than 300.
More Bug Fixes And Changes...
You'll be happy to know that the Portable Signal Detector bug has been fixed! The PSD will no longer ping a random person in the lobby but the closest one to your location as intended. In addition, we have also fixed the Legacy Season visual bug where the icon of a crate is displayed instead of the icon of the reward once you claim it. We have also made a few fixes on the AK-M and RPK recoils so they should feel much smoother now. The last batch of fixes include the fix on the H-BAR bi pod clipping with sights, and in the crafting menu you can now equip consumables 1-by-1 as a default instead of stacks. Last but not least, we have swapped the "git gud" text while the leaderboards are loading with something more appropriate.
Czech Out Our New Localization
Great news for people who want to play Vigor in Czech. You can finally do so with Season 9 because we've added Czech localization to the game! You might find it funny that a Czech game developer didn't have the Czech language included in the game from the beginning, but better late than never, right?
Stay Tuned For More Anniversary Events
We want to thank you again for sticking with us through thick and thin over the last two years! We really appreciate our community because without you and your valuable feedback, we wouldn't be able to push ourselves to constantly improve the game and provide you with a better gaming experience!
We’ve prepared a lot of fun and interesting activities during our anniversary week, so keep your eyes open for more info. And here's to another year full of vigorous events!
We hope you’re as excited for Season 9 as we are, and that you'll enjoy throwing a grenade or two around.
As always, see you in the Outlands!