In less than a year, our talented team of artists, designers, programmers and push-up masters have created something we’re extremely proud of — Offensive Combat — and now we’re ready to start getting it tested!
Starting right now, our friends at IGN.com have given its “Prime” members exclusive first access to our closed beta program. That means that existing members can head over there and collect their beta key right now, while new members can sign up for Prime and start enjoying OC immediately afterward. Sounds like a win-win to us!
As you test our game, please remember to tell us what you think using the green “Feedback” button located on OffensiveCombat.com or in our newly-launched forums. Tell us anything you think is relevant, from bugs and gameplay issues to your personal experienced and favorite moments!
Even if you missed our Facebook photo update yesterday, you probably already knew that we had an Offensive Combat press event last week — thanks to recent coverage on various gaming websites and feeds. The good news for all of us is that the media seemed to like it quite a bit, as evidenced by the throng of positive previews and impressions that followed suit.
In short, yay us! We are the awesomeness!
If you’re looking for proof, we’ve rounded up all the articles we could find that tells you just how fun Offensive Combat is going to be when you get your hands on it — which by the way could be as early as tomorrow if you’re an IGN Prime Member, as they are giving members exclusive first access to our closed beta! If you’re not an IGN Prime member then sign-up and you can play our game.
If you don’t want to hear the pitch right now, that’s cool, as we’ll have more the closed beta tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy all this fabulous Offensive Combat press coverage. Peace!
Best Apps Market – U4iA Games are changing the gaming battlefield
Console XP – Offensive Combat free-to-play preview
FPS General – Hands-on with U4iA Games’ Upcoming Shooter Offensive Combat
GamesRadar – Offensive Combat – Hands-on with the browser-based FPS
GameSpot – Offensive Combat: TimeSplitters with teabagging
IGN – Offensive Combat: A shooter for the crude, cheap and core
Polygon – Offensive Combat is bring console-quality games to browsers
VentureBeat – Offensive Combat: The funniest shooter you’ll play this year
Today’s a big day for us here at U4iA Games, as our labor of love and fruit of our loins, Offensive Combat, has finally been unveiled to the world for the very first time! Plus we’re going to tell you how you can be among the first to check out the game, but more on that later in this post!
In less than a year, we’ve managed to build and refine our own signature take on the first-person shooter genre that collects all of our favorite themes and archetypes into a single, cheeky, super-responsive, highly-customizable bad-ass mash-up of a video game awesomeness. Obviously, it has also increased the likelihood that we’ll write boisterous, whiz-bang run-on sentences by a factor of 10.
So, what is Offensive Combat exactly? Before we get into it, check out our official trailer first; don’t worry, we’ll wait:
Now watch it again.
Done? Excellent! Now you have an inkling of why we’re so excited to bring Offensive Combat to browsers across North America this August. Yeah, that’s right, a web browser. Our goal from the very beginning has been to create a console-quality game that can be played on just about anything that runs a web page — no extra hardware required. Plus, we wanted to make the game free, so anybody and everybody can play it without having to worry about spending any cash. Naturally, we will have ways of making money off the game through various consumables and microtransactions offered to you, our players, but we’ve built OC in a way that allows everyone to enjoy it regardless of how much you spend on it (or don’t). Sound awesome? Great! BFFs for life!
As for the game itself, it has everything you’d want in a high-end shooter. Clan support? Check. Customizable characters? Ditto. Tons of weapons loaded with perks? You got it. Awesome maps that borrow from science fiction, modern military scenarios, and more? We have that too. In short, Offensive Combat is pretty damned fantastic. No, really, it is — you’ll just have to trust us on that until we head into our previously-mentioned North American open beta this August. But don’t worry, we’ll eventually be worldwide, so stay tuned for dates in other territories if you’re not from ‘Merica, the Canadians, or the Southern Kingdom of Mexico.
Wait, I take that back. You will have a chance to play the beta before its “open” period as early as next week! Thanks to our partnership with some professional friends of ours, we’re allowing a select group of people into the nbeta throughout the summer. Your first shot is withIGN Prime (no relation to Optimus or the rib). If you’re a member already then you’re set — you can expect an email with details on how to get in next week. If you aren’t, well then it’s pretty clear what you have to do isn’t it?
We’ll be back again next week with more details and information on our game and the IGN Prime closed beta giveaway, but in the meantime do us all a favor and increase our Klout score by following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook — there could be something in it for you down the line if you do. Don’t forget to hash tag the hell out of #OffensiveCombat while you’re at — we like to be trendy, after all. See you next week!
Welcome back, U4iaNs! Since formally announcing Offensive Combat on May 16, we’ve received a number of questions and requests from new fans via Twitter, Facebook and Email that have asked us to expand a bit on elements of the game that we’ve already talked about.
While we’ve definitely received more questions than those listed below, we wanted to pick the most popular ones to answer first and then go from there in future posts. This also marks the beginning of a semi-regular “developer Q&A” series we’ll feature that allows you to ask whatever you want about our people, our company, and our game. And though a question doesn’t necessarily guarantee an answer, silly ones will most certainly be privately mocked and then ignored completely!
For this first edition of “Probing U,” U4iA co-founders Dusty Welch (CEO) and Chris Archer (CCO) tackle the three most-asked Offensive Combat questions we’ve been hit with most with since our announcement. Here goes:
Q: How will PC/Web vs. iOS cross-platform gaming work? Won’t PC games have an advantage?
Dusty: We’re just teasing the concept for now, honestly, so not much more to say yet. I think it is appropriate to note that we are making connected gameplay experiences appropriate for each platform.
Chris: We have some pretty exciting stuff to share later, but let’s just say that we plan on having a truly integrated or interconnected experience between the Offensive Combat built for a browser and the Offensive Combat built for mobile devices – the likes of which nobody has seen.
Q: How can I get into the beta you guys mentioned would start this summer?
Chris: Are you following us on Twitter or Liking us on Facebook? No? Hmmm… stay tuned to either one of our pages there to find out how you can get in!
Q: How long will the game remain in the “testing” phase before you decide to release a “final” version?
Chris: We don’t have a specific date that we can release today, but it’s very important for us not to take a “final” sort of approach to our game. We want to, and plan to, continuously improve the experience and really listen to our players’ feedback and act on it. As long as the game is alive to add content, we will be there to keep doing so.
Do you have a question about U4iA Games and/or our titles? Then send your best to our Twitter, Facebook or Email accounts and get the answers you’re looking for… or be avoided depending on what you have to say. Either way, thanks in advance for your support!
We have been pretty much in stealth mode since we started as a four-man team back in June of 2011. Late last year we announced that we are working on a First-Person “social” Shooter. A lot of folks have asked, “What the hell is that”? That’s a good question, and simply put, we intend on bringing back the fun that we all experienced when FPS’s first arrived on the scene. In those days, we were all near each other in the same office on the same network, or at LAN parties or other events. We knew the ability to play with friends was central to our experience and made the game more fun for all of us. Games have become much more complex since then, and while you still can play with your friends; the games are difficult to set up, costly, and not focused on CORE multiplayer features, social interaction, and gameplay. We aim to change that dynamic.
After working on a huge-scale, subscription-based MMO for several years at SOE Seattle there was a group us who all realized THAT was not the direction games were headed. Instead, we envisioned a free-to-play game, particularly a shooter that would include an irreverent mash-up of our favorite game themes. Dusty Welch, a fellow ex-Activision alum who led the success of both the Call of Duty and Guitar Hero franchises, had the same idea so we teamed up and U4iA Games was born!
At U4iA, we wanted our game to be free, but we also wanted to let players buy and rent items to customize their experience. We wanted it to be much more than the typical low-end visuals that gamers had come to expect in free-to-play titles, and be of true “AAA” console quality instead. As if that wasn’t a difficult enough task already, we also decided to do all of this in a browser, so players could, at a click of a button, play a top-of-the-line experience for free… AND literally immediate! No waiting, just instant high-quality, e-sport level competition and gameplay.
So here we are today, less than a year later, heading into the FIRST reveal of Offensive Combat, most of the work so far was done by an average of 10 developers (we are now at a whopping 18!). That’s right, not the usual 100+ developers, just a handful of amazing developers making a free-to-play, console-quality, browser-based, multiplayer FPS to compete with the big boys. We did it, but not without a lot of help from some great products including Unity and Photon, some great investors that have let us be creative, a brand new and cutting edge “scrappy agile” project management and production system, and the best team I have ever worked with. We’re not done yet, but we are well on our way!
All of us at U4iA Games are proud of the work so far and we’re excited for all of you to get your hands on our debut genre-defining, online, free-to-play game due later this year. You really should sign up for our Beta. You won’t regret it.
I have a question for the group: What does “AAA” mean to you?
– Chris Archer (CCO, Studio Head)
— Future blog(s): How to make Console Quality, AAA without a massive budget, massive team, or a lot of time.
U4iA Games is actively seeking programmers, artists, production and support staff for a wide range of hardcore and casual multiplayer titles currently under development. Learn more and apply here.
Are you a connoisseur of #PWNogrophy? Hit the O key while playing #OffensiveCombat via our Facebook app to save shots of your best moments!
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Today’s the day OC fans! In less than a year, our talented team of artists, designers, programmers and push-up masters have created something we’re extremely proud of — Offensive Combat — and now we’re ready to start getting it tested! Starting right now, our friends at IGN.com have given its “Prime” members exclusive first access [...]
Even if you missed our Facebook photo update yesterday, you probably already knew that we had an Offensive Combat press event last week — thanks to recent coverage on various gaming websites and feeds. The good news for all of us is that the media seemed to like it quite a bit, as evidenced by [...]
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