Hey guys, big news today! MinMax games just announced Space Pirates and Zombies 2, the highly-anticipated (at least by me ;) sequel to the original and fantastic game. This game looks to be an entire revamp of the original, with a bigger, more expansive universe, dynamic factions and much more. Here are some of the features I was quoted:
- Two hundred persistent Captains that are able to do everything the player can, including forming dynamic factions, building structures, controlling territory, and going to War.
- A true living galaxy that is not player centric. It will develop differently each game through the interactions of the agents.
- Time based galactic story events that happen whether the player is ready or not. These events add new threats and tools to deal with them. The Galaxy will need to find a new natural equilibrium each time a new disaster is unleashed.
- Randomly generated modular parts. Build the mothership that suits your play style, on the fly, in seconds. Every part has its own unique stats that contribute to the mothership. Every part has its own hull integrity and damage states. Every part is a real, working, ship component.
- Strategic ship building. The mass, location and shape of parts all matter. If a part blocks a turret, it will not fire. If a ship is too long, it will turn slowly. Too many engines will mean too little power for weapons. Every design choice counts.
- A fully physics based 3d environment where everything is destructible, takes damage from impacts, can be grabbed and even thrown at enemies with the tractor beam.
- Natural movement and controls. Movement is on a 2d plane and screen relative, much like an FPS. The combat feels like huge pirate ships battling on an ocean. Focus on tactical positioning and manage system power to unleash hell at the right moment.
- Epic ship to ship battles. Tear the enemy apart piece by piece over minutes, instead of seconds.
- Multiplayer arena modes using persistent profile based part inventories.
- Local split screen coop.
Does that not sound AMAZING? The official site has a video you can watch, which I’ve also embedded below along with the official announcement and an exclusive screenshot I was sent as an early birthday present. ;) More info will be coming in as I get it! Yay!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
We (MinMax Games) have just released our announcement trailer for Space Pirates and Zombies 2. The two of us have been working on SPAZ 2 in secret for the past 16 months, and we hope you like it.
Space Pirates and Zombies 2 Announcement Trailer
Here’s the important stuff we’re adding:
- It’s in 3D!
- There’s multiplayer!
- There’s split screen Co-op!
- Better controls, and controller support!
- Physics everywhere. Break and throw anything and everything!
- Procedural modular parts to build and break ships in battle, like spaceship Lego!
- Huge metagame with up to 200 AI fleets forming dynamic factions to fight over resources and territory!
- Coming out in 2014!… probably.
About MinMax:
MinMax was born in 2009 when Andrew Hume and Richard Clifford left AAA development to start their dream project, Space Pirates and Zombies. After a rocky start, SPAZ went on to be a great success selling well over 600,000 units with an average play time of over 30 hours. That success is allowing us to bring you SPAZ 2!
More info can be found on our Steam coming soon page and www.spaz2.com
Now, here’s the trailer:
And the screenshot!
Did they build another new engine for this? They’ve been hard at work. Why keep the sequel a secret for so long? Isn’t it better to rev the hype machine at every opportunity?
The 3D ships are a nice touch, even if you can’t fly in it.
They’re using Unity though.
Oh! This’ll be interesting then. I always wondered if Unity could be used to make good games.
KSP says hi.
I’ve heard both good and bad things about unity from a development point of view. Most of the bad is somewhat technical esoterica (ie: annoying things that can be worked around), and it does have some fairly solid advantages. Especially for the small developer: it’s cheap, runs on a lot of platforms, and (reportedly) has fairly good tools.
It’s like any game engine; if you play to its strengths, you can make good games with it.
Best gaming news of the weekend. Great looks, living universe and if gameplay is at least as fun as SPAZ 1…
Performing the Dance of Joy in 3… 2… 1…
Just bought SPAZ on Steam after seeing this trailer and checking out what the first game is about. Wow, it’s hard to believe I’ve missed it thus far. I’ve actually heard the name before, but space + pirates + zombies sounded so extremely cheesy that I didn’t even check it out. What next? Space, Pirates, Zombies, Giant Robots, AND NINJAS?!
Oh wait, I’ve just described Mass Effect.
Anyway, I would have kept avoiding it due to a strange knee-jerk reaction if not for this post. Thanks! :D