Dusty extract-o-shooter The Forever Winter got an update over the weekend that added another mech to the growing list of horrifying war machines that roam its post-apocalyptic world looking for fleshy idiots to squash and eat. “The StiltWalker is a multi-legged destruction machine: equipped with multiple missile and machinegun weapon systems,” say the developers in an update post on Steam. Pfft. What’s so scary about that? Just shoot some rockets at it.
“It is also equipped with a point defense system that can detonate explosive munitions that are fired at it from a distance.”
Ah. Well. Nevertheless.
“Its peripheral missile systems are direct-fire,” the update continues, “but its core missile systems are ATGM guided munitions that will sail into the sky before raining down on Europa’s foes with deadly homing accuracy.” Big talk from someone with skinny little legs. You can see what it looks like in the trailer above. Developers Fun Dog do love recording doomy panning shots of their ashen wastelands peppered with tracer fire and the odd explosion. I suppose when it looks this atmospheric who can blame them?
The update also adds a new region to explore – a rubble-strewn city called “Lost Angels” with its own quests to complete. Although the devs say that this region, like much of the game, is a “work in progress”. Alongside all this there are a bunch of performance improvements and other tweaks, like a change to the weight and speed of player characters, and some alterations to weapon reload rates. You can also now spam a button to get up more quickly after being knocked down. Stuff like that.
It’s been interesting to track this third-person shooter as it’s scavenged its way through the early access wastes. It was in a shonky state when it first broke cover, with hostile troops spawning right on top of players and enemy tanks flipping out and flying across the sky. The game’s water resource system was divisive too. It was designed so that precious water drained away even while you weren’t playing, which could once theoretically result in losing all your gear.
But it looks more and more like many of the early pains have been somewhat soothed. The water system was completely overhauled, for one thing, and recent monthly updates have seen changes to the way stealth works and a way to hack radar mechs to reveal a better picture of the enigmatic and eternal three-way war that rages around you. As for other buggy war machines, they continue to get fine-tuned in this month’s patch: “Tanks now move much more reliably,” it says. No more trips to the moon, lieutenant.
