Orbital Strike: Arena cover
Orbital Strike: Arena screenshot
PC Steam
Genre: Indie

Orbital Strike: Arena

Retiring Arena
After close to 6 years live, we are beginning steps to retire Orbital Strike: Arena. We have begun the process to remove the game from sale on Steam and will be shutting down the dedicated servers shortly after.

While we were not able to bring Arena to the successful conclusion we had hoped for it, we've brought the lessons learned to our next title: Orbital Strike VR. As a thank you to all our Arena supporters, a copy of Orbital Strike VR will be included to all owners of Orbital Strike: Arena. It should show up in your Steam library once it is released later this year.

Thanks for all the support and feedback over the years and hope to see you all in Epsilon Indi!

Next Steps
For the past 3 years since our last update, we’ve been working in the background, prototyping new ideas, attempting to update Orbital Strike: Arena to a release state. Unfortunately, the game never was as successful as we hoped. We released too early with not enough content and, as weekend developers, we could not release updates quickly enough to sustain a player population for a competitive game.

The internal project that we’ve been working on since then is almost to the point where we’re about comfortable showing off but it no longer follows what was envisioned for Arena. It has become a new game in its own right. One of the lessons learned was not to bite off more than we can handle and so we’ve moved away from dedicated servers and PVP type gameplay. Personally, what we’ve had the most fun with is short, polished, cooperative multiplayer adventures. Something that doesn't require the resources of building a large player base, but can stand on its own.

For now, we will pause development on Arena. We’re hoping to one day come to back it and give it the resources it needs to succeed. As a thank you to everyone that’s given us support, we will be giving Steam Keys for our new project to anyone who owns Orbital Strike: Arena. We’ll make another announcement here as we get closer to releasing the new project on how to obtain your key. Thank you for all the support over the years.

Open world server updates, new starting room, and hands!
The last 6 weeks we've been hard at work with the new open world prototype. We're very proud to announce we now have controllable multicrew starships that can seamlessly warp between zones. As a bonus, we've also completed the initial proof of concept for modular spaceship components. While there are only 8 component types right now, they represent a good foundation for adding custom starships and stations in the future.

The alpha for the open world server is not ready for general release just yet but you may see it online from time to time as we're actively developing on it. Feel free to jump on and checkout some of the new systems if you see it up.

Now that the starships are ready, we can finalize our Phase 2 roadmap. It's been delayed way longer than we liked but we wanted to take it a bit slow and prototype these big ideas before making promises. Huge Thanks to everyone for your support, feedback, and patience as we finalize the design for the next update.

Patch Notes



New Features

  • New starting apartment with a better initial tutorial help screens. This should help ease new players into the game.
  • Added support for clientside interactables. We've added a few things to the starting apartment to play with and learn the controls.
  • You can now drop and throw weapons weapon using the menu button.
  • Menu UI is a lot easier to use.
  • New VR hands to replace the Vive controller models.
  • Additional voice chat options. We know have Always On, Push To Talk, Toggle, and Disabled settings.


Bug Fixes:

  • Added starship parent velocity to weapon projectiles.
  • Fixed some bullet sync issues when firing from starships.
  • Fixed collision detect on starships when close to stations.
  • Only the starship owner can pilot a ship.
  • Only the starship owner can modify a ship.
  • Fixed menu pointer disabling after warping.
  • Fixed not being able to warp while another player is in warp space.
  • Fixed an issue where the Armory would not open the first time you toggled it.
  • Fixed issue with menu pointer not resetting menu items.


Open World alpha features:

Open world server updates, new starting room, and hands!
The last 6 weeks we've been hard at work with the new open world prototype. We're very proud to announce we now have controllable multicrew starships that can seamlessly warp between zones. As a bonus, we've also completed the initial proof of concept for modular spaceship components. While there are only 8 component types right now, they represent a good foundation for adding custom starships and stations in the future.

The alpha for the open world server is not ready for general release just yet but you may see it online from time to time as we're actively developing on it. Feel free to jump on and checkout some of the new systems if you see it up.

Now that the starships are ready, we can finalize our Phase 2 roadmap. It's been delayed way longer than we liked but we wanted to take it a bit slow and prototype these big ideas before making promises. Huge Thanks to everyone for your support, feedback, and patience as we finalize the design for the next update.

Patch Notes



New Features

  • New starting apartment with a better initial tutorial help screens. This should help ease new players into the game.
  • Added support for clientside interactables. We've added a few things to the starting apartment to play with and learn the controls.
  • You can now drop and throw weapons weapon using the menu button.
  • Menu UI is a lot easier to use.
  • New VR hands to replace the Vive controller models.
  • Additional voice chat options. We know have Always On, Push To Talk, Toggle, and Disabled settings.


Bug Fixes:

  • Added starship parent velocity to weapon projectiles.
  • Fixed some bullet sync issues when firing from starships.
  • Fixed collision detect on starships when close to stations.
  • Only the starship owner can pilot a ship.
  • Only the starship owner can modify a ship.
  • Fixed menu pointer disabling after warping.
  • Fixed not being able to warp while another player is in warp space.
  • Fixed an issue where the Armory would not open the first time you toggled it.
  • Fixed issue with menu pointer not resetting menu items.


Open World alpha features:

  • [Open World Server Only] Controllable custom starships. Supports multiple players. Simply teleport into the pilot controls and start flying.
  • [Open World Server Only] New Starship Builder tool with 8 component types. Small Scaffolding, Large Scaffolding, Hatch, Docking Hatch, Pilot Bay, Solid Wall, Glass Wall, and Small Engine.

Assault Rifle and accuracy changes!
We've released our first update of the new year! We finally have a proper assault rifle to bring into the game. The MX-225 Assault Rifle is an accurate 3-round burst weapon that's great for taking out drones and other players. In getting the burst firing mode feeling just right, we've also had to completely redo the accuracy system. Some weapons will reward players with tight controlled bursts, while others are more suited to getting up close and letting loose.

On the technical side, we've made some more server-side optimizations and finally finished updating all the graphical effects to allow turning on single-pass stereo rendering. This should result in a performance boost for most players.

Patch Notes



New Features

  • New Assault Rifle weapon!
  • New accuracy model. Instead of a flat accuracy rating per weapon, accuracy now drops off depending on fire rate.
  • Enabled Single-Pass Stereo Rendering.
  • More server-side optimizations.


Bug Fixes:

  • Fixed a few texture issues with weapons.
  • Fixed graphical issue with building explosions.


Phase 2 Sneak Peek



Our work on the Phase 2 update is progressing well and we have a short clip of the latest prototype. We've been experimenting with player created structures and starships. The work we did a few months ago on local physics grids came in handy. We were able to get them flying within the day!

Flight Test long
Flight Test short



New Rocket Launcher Weapon and bug fixes!
We've been hard at work with the new Phase 2 updates. We're not ready to show off any of the work yet but we were able to finish and polish off a few new improvements that we want to get out the door now. Hope you all enjoy the new update! We're going to try to get the alpha for Phase 2 out for you all sometime during the Holidays.



Patch Notes



New Features

  • New Rocket Launcher Weapon!
  • New Damage model allowing greater flexibility with damage falloff. We now use a custom function for each weapon instead of a linear falloff. We've also added support for armored targets and armor piercing weapons. Our new rocket launcher is the first to use this, causing armor piercing impact damage.
  • Various new graphics and sounds effects.


Bug Fixes:

  • Fixed a bug with bullets not hitting if firing at point blank range.
  • Fixed a bug with the controller model not being visible after switching teams.
  • Fixed a bug with enemy players name showing before you can see them.
  • Fixed a bug with end of round music playing twice.
  • Fixed an issue with muzzle locations not being correct on the server. This was causing some shots to miss when shooting close targets.
  • Fixed an issue with render draw ordering for scoped weapons.

Introducing the Shotgun and Phase 2 Updates!
We have a new weapon released this week. The shotgun is great for close quarters combat and is really going to shine in the new station maps we're working on. We've also added some cool new effects for targeting enemies, updated a few of the graphics in the station lobby, and lots of bug fixes.



Phase 2 Updates



The good news is, baring any nasty bug surprises, this should be the last of the Phase 1 updates. We are jumping right into the new Phase 2 design and work. We're still working on public version of the design doc but as a sneak peak, here are some highlights.


  • Internal stress test has us at 32 players per instance. We're bouncing between 24-32 players for the final design but at a minimum, we're looking at a nice increase of the number of players you can fight against.
  • Our main goal is to solve the biggest challenge facing VR multiplayer games, which is player count. As a part of the core design, we'll be creating events to bring players together at specific times so that there are at least 2-3 events per week (scalable depending on monthly user counts) where we can get some large battles going.
  • The second core design goal is that a player can have fun and make an impact even if they are the only one online at the moment.




Patch Notes



New Features

  • New Shotgun weapon!
  • New targeting and information overlay. You can now see at a glance where your teammates are. It will also alert when your base's buildings are under attack.
  • Removed custom controller model. We're now using the controller model selected from SteamVR.


Balancing:

  • Increased personal shield hitpoints from 75 to 100.


Bug Fixes:

  • Fixed a bug that caused a controller to not properly set at the start of the game.
  • Fixed an issue when refreshing servers on the server browser.
  • Fixed several bugs related to changing teams during a match.
  • Several clientside and serverside optimizations.
  • Reworked weapon respawning. They should now respect the respawn time limits per weapon type.
  • Replaced old color grading method with a new, more performant plugin.

Bug Fix update!
This week's update was focused on fixing up any existing issues or bugs that have been cropping up. Both of us on the team are heading into our Thanksgiving holiday and hope everyone has a safe and fun week. We're still working on the new re-release plan we mentioned during last week's news post. I'm planning on finishing it up during the break and should have it ready to post once we get back.

We've also posted a new trailer on the site. Check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvhkWJ61gJY

New Features



  • Clap hands or shields with other players for a cool effect!
  • Added hit marker and sound effect.


Balancing:



  • Added new Team-only teleport walls. You can no longer teleport into the enemy's base.


Bug Fixes:



  • Fixed a graphical issue with teleport circle not resetting after returning to your room.
  • Fixed bug with player health bar updates.
  • Fixed bug preventing cross grabbing weapons from holsters.
  • Fixed multiple bugs with the station lobby's firing range.
  • Fixed multiple collider issues on the station lobby.
  • Fixed an issue with not cleaning up a collider when a player leaves.
  • Fixed an issue with health clientside prediction while in lobby.
  • Fixed an issue with grabbing a new weapon while firing an existing one.

New Update!
New update is out! We have some cool changes completed today that brings us very close to finishing up with the base gameplay redesign.

Future Plans



For our next update, we are hard at work on a new arena game-mode map and we also have a new two-handed weapon in the pipeline; a close range shotgun!

It's been pretty quiet on the marketing front the past couple months. While the redesign work we've been doing is substantial, we don't feel it's a great enough change to base a marketing drive around.

But we are very quickly getting to the point where we will feel ready for a big re-release and marketing push to get new players on-board. The ad-hoc deadline we have for ourselves is before the holiday sale. The plan is to complete all the game-play redesign work, a new arena game-mode, and the beta for the planet-side battlescape mode. We're going to wrap it all around a big marketing drive and make available a free game demo build to bring in as many players as possible! We'll post some more information on this next week.


Patch Notes



New Features

  • Added health bars for all players, drones, and buildings.
  • New grenade damage model. Grenades now do damage based on distance.
  • New Sniper damage model. Damage increases with distance (Maximum at 50 meters). Switch to a backup weapon for close range targets!
  • Tactical reloads! Grab a new weapon from your belt at any time to reload.
  • Complete revamp of health and damage values.


Balancing:

  • Teleport trial effect now stays active for longer. Allows more time to reacquire targets.
  • Increased personal shield size slightly.


Bug Fixes:

  • Fixed a graphical issue that occurred when firing weapons.

Voice Chat added!
Tonight's weekly update brings the long awaited voice chat feature. The Left Grip buttons will transmit to your team while the Right Grip buttons will transmit globally. We've also added some new graphical effects to indicate who's talking and a way to mute players in the menu.

New Features



  • Voice Chat - Hold the Left grip for Team chat and Right Grip for global chat.
  • New Auto-Blaster model!
  • New Options Menu design. The menu can now be opened at any time by pressing the controllers Menu button.


Balancing:



  • Decreased Sniper damage from 10 to 6 points.
  • Decreased grenade damage radius from 25 to 20 meters.


Bug Fixes:



  • Fixed an issue causing weapons in holsters to look bigger than they should.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed team-mates to be damaged by grenades.


Next Update



We're continuing our weekly improvements with some much needed additions to the HUD. Next week we plan on adding health bars for your character, buildings and other players, as well as making it easier to see where your team-mates are and important events happening on the map.
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