At Gamescom, I sat down with the team at MADFINGER to learn about the next evolution for Gray Zone Warfare. The team has been preparing a super-sized content update that has just been revealed in full, at the heart of which sits the ‘day/night’ mechanics. This long-awaited feature plunges Lamang into darkness, altering the game state in many ways.
That’s only scratching the surface of this update, though. MADFINGER’s Rick Lagnese advised me that a wipe is ‘100% necessary’ because of all the new features and mechanics being implemented, which means that once you’ve installed the update, you’ll find your account reset.
I Am The Night
Gray Zone Warfare emerged earlier this year to considerable success, hitting more than 800,000 sales in just a few days. It won players over with gorgeous visuals and an open-world approach to the extraction shooter formula, despite the team being adamant that it’s not strictly an extraction shooter.
There’s plenty in the GZW pipeline, I’ve come to learn. As I sat down with the guys at Gamescom, I was presented with exclusive live footage of the new update, checking out how darkness impacted the world of Lamang. To survive at night, you’ll need to have your wits about you and plenty of equipment: night-vision goggles, flashlights, tracer rounds, and other tactical devices like lasers.
It’s very realistic. In designing the night cycle, the team has gone so far as to replicate the Southeast Asian sky, matching up constellations you’d see in the real world in the game. They’ve also tweaked how the AI behaves at night, with soldiers sleeping, taking reduced patrols, and using their own aids like flashlights when needed.
Oh, and the squad is adding a series of night-only quests that’ll force you into that less comfortable environment.
Getting Better
MADFINGER has boosted the world of Lamang in this update, deploying more points of interest that add a little backstory to the region, and the in-game economy has been ‘rebalanced’.
This means rewards, prices, loot, AI equipment, vendor stocks, and progression have all been addressed. This overhaul is why ‘a wipe will be 100% necessary’, Rick Lagnese said. With this update comes high-value loot, boosted loot density, and various other elements like stash cases, faction chat in the wider world, streamer mode, and even an emote system.
Movement mechanics have been tweaked or added, such as prone leaning and diagonal sprinting, and the team has worked tirelessly to address some of the biggest issues in Gray Zone Warfare:
- AI being overpowered
- ‘Deafening’ helicopters
- Long helicopter wait times
- Rubber-banding
Ultimately, all this is just a taste of what’s coming in the next Gray Zone Warfare update. If you’ve not yet picked the game up, consider investing in it on PC – you won’t regret it.
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