Hellsplit: Arena 1.3, Quest Release and Future Plans

[h2]Hello Warriors![/h2]

Devs are here with you again and today we want to share our plans, ideas and visions with you on the future of the game Hellsplit: Arena.

As many of you know, our game was first released on Steam in late September 2019. It is a rather long time, but the fact that remains unchanged is that all this time we have been working and continue working on our game. All this time we have considered the requests and wishes of our players with great attention and we managed to gradually integrate many of those (e.g. mods) to the game. In parallel, we always had our own vision on the project and desire to implement plenty of ideas, new mechanics, modes, etc. Unfortunately our team remains practically as small as it was at the game start. For this reason we have never had an opportunity to implement all conceived at the very beginning but it only means that each of us works even harder to make Hellsplit: Arena just as it was initially planned to be. And today we are glad to announce that we came as close as possible to our goal and want to tell what the future holds for Hellsplit: Arena:

[h2]Hellsplit: Arena 1.3[/h2]
Hellsplit: Arena 1.3 is a core update which basically includes all the vision of the creators gained through years of development. Moreover the update takes numerous requests of our players into account linked to replayability of the “Arena” campaign, addition of new enemies to the game, fixing of the old problems and integration of new mechanics:

Core changes:
[h3]Updated “Arena” campaign[/h3]
In general the “Arena” campaign will keep its structure and the maps set, but it will be expanded by means of more detailed revelation of LORE part, new gameplay elements, global goals and plenty of new enemies. There will be added new game modes NG+, additional endings as well as the possibility to return to the previous maps. Besides, the starting classes will appear in the game, which will help you to comfortably begin and continue with the exactly weapon builds that you like. Obviously there will be added new weapon types to the game which will make the fight even more varied and help you using your unique fighting style.



[h3]New campaign “Labyrinth”[/h3]
“Labyrinth” is a principally new campaign which earlier was not presented in our game. The participants of our community Un_Cocotier and Shadow Team under official support of the developers are engaged in the development of this campaign. “Labyrinth” will represent 9 unique biomes, each of which consists of 2 procedurally-generated levels, where at the end of each you will face a boss in a fight! During the adventure you will be able to find new loot, open new weapon, pump your character and many other. The mode with also support several NG+ modes, where passing of each can take of 10 hours. We will share more details about the new mode in one of the next announcements.


[h3]New game mode “Sandbox”[/h3]
The mode that has already become classic in many famous VR games. Here everything is familiar to you - you will be able to spawn the characters, weapon and other objects in real time as well as change their properties and behavior. You will be able to collect all the content which is presented in the game on one level and different configurations. Now all this will appear in our game as well.

[h3]Overhauled enemies pipeline[/h3]
We have always paid particular attention to the enemies and interaction with them in our game. Those who have followed us for long know that we have some characters (e.g. Meatboy) that have been ready for a long time and still have not appeared in the main game. Now their time has come and they all challenge you in the update 1.3. You will find more than 10 new enemies, including non-anthropomorphic, with blood and rich dismemberment, just the way you like! Besides, the existing enemies will also be overhauled to divide their classes more clearly. Bosses will get their personal styles and ultimate possibilities to really challenge you.



[h3]Simplified role-playing system[/h3]
It is a brand new mechanics in our game which enables the progression of your character. Some players were worried that the addition of RPG part will lead the game away from the initial idea of realistic Melee fighting, but we assure you that there is no reason for concern. The role-playing system by no means changes the fighting mechanics but rather complements them, e.g. adding the critical damage to the weapon which allows you to fight the enemies of any complexity level using your most preferable weapon. Our game is and will be based on the Skill Based Combat System. Besides, the system will include suchlike classical characteristics as luck, chance of loot drop and objects search, which become critically important in combination with the updated “Arena” and “Labyrinth” modes, as now for passing them it will be strongly important to find and collect the key playing objects.



[h3]Avatar’s customization system[/h3]
Another system which has not been presented in our game earlier. Now it will help you to customize your character by setting its appearance using a variety of unique presets. Race, skin color, hair, facial hair, tattoos - you will be able to change all this to set your exclusive character.

[h3]Overhauled sound system[/h3]
Amongst many of the reviews to our game, there are a good few of those where you have reported about the sound low quality. We have always acknowledged this problem but unfortunately could not start its solving for a long time. Now we have finally found the resources to take up this issue, so for several months already the game’s sound system has been in the process of overhauling. We are polishing almost everything from the creation of the distinctive ambient effects for each map to the selection of new, high-quality and various samples for sounding of all the interactive elements in the game. We have quite closely worked on the binaural effects settings which is very important for every VR game. We hope that you will not be disappointed! We also intend to replace the announcer! 🙂

[h3]Global UI refinement[/h3]
The addition of new role-playing systems requires us to include new gaming interfaces and windows! The existing system has become common and classic but, after 5 years, we want to slightly update it. Nothing will be principally changed but the interface will become a bit more modern.

[h3]Multi-language support[/h3]
At present our game supports only English, though the addition of other languages has been in our plans for long. Finally, in the update 1.3 it has become possible to add new localizations into the game. We will announce the full list of the new languages later.

[h3]Fixing of critical problems[/h3]
Since the release of our game there have been accumulated a lot of problems that are reported again and again by people. Black screen at launch, game crashes at the start, broken savings - all this is critically important, but unfortunately we still have not managed to solve the majority of these problems, mostly due to the difficulties of hardware and software interaction of VR systems. We will try to fix the biggest part of those problems in the new update. Moreover, we do not forget about other promises of ours, e.g. the new control modes for Touch controllers (Quest) and Steam achievements will be added.

Update 1.3 will be released at the beginning of Q4 2024. Until then we do not plan to release any other updates as we are now throwing all our forces in the new release! In case you missed the previous news, our update 1.24 was released 3 weeks ago, in which we added some interesting improvements.

[h2]Quest 2 и Quest 3 Releases[/h2]
We have long thought about the order of the news in our announcement. It is true, our game will be released on the Meta Quest platform and this is a remarkable event for our game, perhaps even more significant than the release of another big update.

The game released on the Quest platform will include the entire content which is available on the PC version and will be endowed with the same possibilities. Obviously, the hardware difference of the platforms will lead to the graphics level differences, but the game will have the same gameplay possibilities as the main game. The same enemies, weapon and maps will be presented in the game at the time of launch.

We initially plan the release for Quest 2 platform, which will be definitely supported on Quest 3 devices, but with the same graphics level. We plan to release a separate game version a bit later, specifically optimized for Quest 3 using the AR possibilities of the new platform. The release on the Quest platform is planned for Q4 2024.

[h2]Sony PlayStation VR2 Release[/h2]
It’s long been rumored on the web that we plan to release our game on PSVR2 platform. And yes, it’s not a rumor! We are really working on porting of our game to this platform. The game the same will be released in an updated version there, including the update 1.3 and special optimizations which will use the capacities of the modern VR device by Sony to the maximum. The release of this update is planned for Q2 2025. More details will follow in one of the next announcements!

[h2]Other Platforms[/h2]
We are still full of ideas regarding the future development of our game and the Deep Type Games studio itself. The release on other platforms, apart from the above-mentioned is among them. We do not reveal the details so far, as we need to concentrate on the current plans and launch the new releases in the specified deadlines.

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
We end our announcement here but not the development of the game Hellsplit: Arena. We still have a lot of plans. Such possibilities as multiplayer or the “Siege” mode as well as many others were not included in the update 1.3. But this is all possible in the future if there is the most significant - the support of our players! The fact that you like our game, play it, follow it, share your wishes and really care about its future is very important for us. We are here with you, we love you and hear you, read every review, keep all of your ideas and note each of your suggestions down. This game is for you!

We hope that you enjoyed this announcement and our future plans regarding our game’s development! Follow our news, subscribe to our Discord and wait for the new updated and releases on the new platforms! Good luck, warriors!

Yours sincerely, Deep Type Games team.