Month: December 2021 Page 1 of 5

It would be hard to talk to someone who is so passionate for his game like Maximilian REA.

The Black Matter’s Survival CEO has lived and sculpted brightly LET LOOSE since its founding in 2017. During his six-year activity as a boss of the company, REA has changed many things.

Bright Let Loose started 2017 as a modest Kickstarter project. But 2021 looks very different. After Bright Left Loose has set new recruits to refine the game, it has achieved two important milestones: the full publication on the PC and a console start. It’s something that seemed to REA at the beginning of his journey like a dispassionate dream, but now he was true. This year was crazy, says REA after a brief laugh. I look back at 2021, and it feels like its last year, it was crazy.

And if you consider the journey that REA and his 24-headed team are behind, he is not wrong. When the global pandemic broke out, development teams around the world had to find out how they should do their work from home. However, Black Matter already had the nose. The team has always worked out of afar and when many had become accustomed to this new way of working, REA and Co. were professionally progressing.

We did not miss a blow, he says confidently. But it was personal. COVID-19 may not have been directly affected by the studio, but the noise that adds people to life is considered very considered.

REA comes from Australia, but works here in the United Kingdom — and the ongoing pandemic means that he could not see his family for three and a half years. Some of his staff sit in the same boat, and of course that burdens the development process. But Black Matter is in the heart of a family — and it is clear that REA respects and appreciates his employees.

We have at the idea of ​​loving to have physical premises, but in the investigation, I think that part of the magic works in the way the team works in that they do not have to commute and in no way bound Feel. He says. The disadvantage is that sometimes you have the feeling of never switching off. Therefore, we are very stringent to messages that are sent outside business hours, and we encourage all to turn off their notifications.

We really promote a work-life balance, because as we all found during the pandemic, the boundaries can blur. We are also firmly convinced that we do not crunch. Should we ever have to crunch, we would see that as a failure of the management on our side and not as a necessity. It would be very embarrassed to me personally, if we had to crunch, because it shows that we did not use properly or did not have enough time.

One of Areas features, which is glaring during the conversation is obvious, is to plan his need. Whether it’s about planning the next step from Black Matter, the next bright LET LOOSE-UPDATE or the successor to the game — for this later — REA can be open to all options.

Even shortly after the turn of the year, REA had set the company’s goals. First and foremost, he wanted to pull brightly lose from the Early Access on Steam and publish The Lethal Tide — an extension with Soviet theme. He then wanted to test the start of the game on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X | S — something from which he was relatively unmolested despite skeptics.

I was confident in breastfeeding that Bright Let Loose will comfort me, says REA. It was one of my original talks with Team 17 very, very long time. I felt confident because I was a console player 15 years ago, but I moved to the PC and discovered this kind of game there — something that was not available on the console. I had the deep suspicion that when the tactic shooter would be on the console, I would never have gone to the PC, especially since the entrance barrier is technically very low.

But no matter how I thought about it, I knew we had to prove it. It’s finally a kind of hen egg situation: has never taken anyone on the console because it would fail, or nobody does these games, because there is simply not to play?

Although she feels confident, REA admits that there were reasons to be nervous. Bright Let Loose should only be published a few weeks ago two important console titles for the console: Call of Duty Vanguard and Battlefield 2042. But with the work of Fix, a company that helped to port the game and to features of the new generation too Developing like haptic feedback and timely beta tests felt self-confident from day to day.

We knew that not everyone He’ll Let Loose like would, and we were very satisfied, REA continues. We tend to attract slightly older players on the PC, and we thought that something similar would happen to the console. What we have tried in the beta test was whether players from the genre and the core concept or are repelled by the execution.

The beta testing, we found that we could breathe a sigh of relief, because the people who gave us feedback, a great passion for the game, had it wanted to succeed and very technical feedback had on how we could improve it. They not only came back to us and said, I can not this game without hit marker or a kill Feed play -. And that was very early great
Although the beta testing were plagued by problems, including lengthy server blackouts, the community remained at Black Matter — which resulted in one of the most amazing console announcements this year: He’ll Let Loose on PlayStation Plus as a free game headlines in November. REA wanted to prove them wrong and this was to do the platform he needed to do just that.

Within days He’ll Let Loose was flooded with new players. While the experience of older players was a bit frustrating — He’ll Let Loose is a game based on strategy and communications — was this low barrier to entry console players the opportunity to experience something that is not normally offered them a real tactical first-person shooter. And one can say with certainty that the risk was worth it.

Feel fresh

When work began on the console port of Hell Let Loose, gave REA Fix, a development partner, the green light to become creative. It is this team that created the phenomenal haptic feedback on PS5.

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We wanted to use this fantastic arrangements with Sony the widest possible net is spread, says REA. Free weekend on Steam are a powerful conversion tool speaking from experience — not so much to bring the people to Hell Let Loose, but to this entire genre. And after the PS Plus partnership, we were very pleased about retaining end of the month.

Especially in the console numbers REA remains timid. He tells me that he can not say much, but the grin that spreads across his face, suggests that it was very successful. When pushed, he lets us easily peek through the curtain. Our PS Plus month and the Xbox introduction were very well-received — far higher than anything we had predicted, he teases. I think it’s also largely in line with the PC audience.

It helps that He’ll Let Loose has reached a market at a time in the recent triple-A games were not necessarily welcomed with open arms. Call of Duty Vanguard offers the same experience as its predecessor, Battlefield 2042 has started in a less than ideal condition. It also helps that there is not for He’ll Let Loose on the console much in the way.

Nevertheless, the start seems — even without the cold, hard numbers to see — a success for Black Matter and Team 17 to be, and then REA is incredibly proud.

I think we have some doubters proven otherwise, he says with a hint of a smile. I remember that I’ve seen some threads that this game will be dead and no one would be interested said. We are pleased that this has not proved to be correct.

During our conversation REA constantly refers to the player base of Hell Let Loose. Since he started all those years ago to work on the game, he has built a good relationship with the community, and this is true even today. While the Sony deal this year with its stolzesten moments up there, he regularly mentioned personal moments where he spends time with He’ll Let Loose fans. Whether it’s talking to a group of passionate individuals who play the game since the early days of the Kickstarter campaign, or to move to a private game Test with others in the war, it is clear that the community at the center of his ideas stands.

He tells me about the time when he was the development team took part in a Discord server just to listen after new fans of the game online entered a virtual stage to speak to the User Experience team of Team 17 Let Loose for the first time has made me so proud, because when you’re so close to something you never think that it’s good enough, he says. To hear This excitement and enthusiasm, was a very special moment. It hits you only on a very different place.

Sealing sales and simultaneous users can be fantastic, but at the end of the day, the personal connection is much more memorable and much more meaningful.

In 2022, Black Matter wants to build on these personal connections by giving the players what they want. It has already been done to match the PC and console versions of the game, as well as new features that will improve the user experience for both new and existing players.

In short, Black Matter has learned from his mistakes. We do not always do everything right, REA notes when he talks about the biggest challenge of the company. Bright Let Loose has been a live service model for two years and that can cause headaches. We have become much better in planning and knowing how long the things need, but the biggest disadvantage is that every time a problem occurs in the game, it’s really painful for us.

One of these pain points, especially for new console players, was the sharp learning curve to completely understand the chipper from Hell Let Loose. The absence of a tutorial is, for example, one of the weaknesses of Black Matter — but that’s just because the developer team behind the scenes has worked hard to find the most important pillars of the game.

The biggest challenge before was just not to know what the game was, he…