ted.litchfield@futurenet.com (Ted Litchfield)
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In a recent video from Mecha Break developer Amazing Seasun, company CEO Kris Kwok revealed that a “pilot combat mode” where you leave your mech and explore the battlefield on foot is part of the studio’s long-term plan for the game after its release in 2025.
The video features Kwok addressing common fan questions and requests in an interview format, and begins with an overview of how Amazing Seasun plans on expanding Mecha Break’s pilot and mech customization. The real heat comes at about the three minute mark, with Kwok explaining how players will get to explore their mech’s hangar and adjoining facilities at launch, with battlefield on-foot options coming later down the line.
“You’ll be able to navigate the entire hangar from the pilot’s perspective, and the experience extends beyond just the hangar itself,” Kwok says in the video. “You can also explore the tactical station area, preparation zones, and the living quarters,” with that final zone also including “amenities such as the cafeteria, gym, bar, dorm room, and even shooting range.”
Kwok uses that last amenity as a jumping off point to reveal Amazing Seasun’s idea for “pilot combat mode,” which he characterizes as a “long-term plan” for the game after its 1.0 launch next year: “Initially, we might start experimenting with the hangar itself, allowing players to have their pilots pick up guns and practice at the shooting range.”
I’ve always thought mech games live and die by their sense of scale, really selling the idea that these things dwarf their surroundings and carry truly awesome firepower. Letting the player step outside the mech and explore in human scale—either in a non-combat hub or on missions—is an incredibly effective way of doing that, but it requires a developer to implement a separate, very different form of moving and interacting with the world, while also ensuring that the game’s assets stand up to both perspectives. Being able to eject mid-combat introduces the further wrinkle of balancing for such an ability.
You tend to see hangar exploration way more than pilot combat, and the gold standard for the latter remains the Titanfall games, which were human-scale FPSes first, and mech shooters second. Mecha Break’s coming from the opposite direction, and on a larger scale than Titanfall. I’ll be eager to see how pilot combat is implemented and balanced—my mind immediately goes to something like “Baby D.Va” in Overwatch, the ability to eject from your mech and survive its destruction. However Amazing Seasun approaches the feature, it sounds like we’ll be waiting some time to find out how it pans out.
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