Sergey Titov, the producer of Infestation Survivor Stories (formerly The WarZ), sent out an interesting email to his player base earlier today. Sergey essentially unwrapped his, moreover Free Reign Entertainment LLC’s, next big video game endeavor of Shattered Skies. Make no mistake; this game is another open-world-looter-shooter-sandbox survival-ish-game.
For those interested, below is the full email received on April 2nd, 2016 at 10:10 AM Eastern Standard time.
Hi,
I’d like to start by personally saying thank you for being such a long time supporter of the games I’ve been working on.
As you may know, people often say “the third time is the charm”. While the first two were actually pretty good, and WarZ/ISS and Aftermath are doing well, I still have a sour taste for some of the things that I’ve been unable to achieve in those games.
With that said I am proud to present to you Shattered Skies – an open world Looter Shooter sandbox survival game with NO monetization/microtransactions.
26 minutes of gameplay video – https://youtu.be/3LHWaeuRpX8
PLAY AT www.playshatteredskies.comShattered Skies takes place in a ruined world devastated by a comet impact that struck the moon and rained thousands of meteorites down to earth introducing vicious predatory aliens to the planet. Shattered Skies is packed with beautiful scenic vistas and tons of lootable items in a full loot drop no holds barred PVP world. I’m sure you’ll have a great time!
Please check our official website for detailed information and uncut gameplay footage of Shattered Skies. Alpha will be open to the public on April 15th, and until then we’re offering great discounts for anyone who pre-purchases Shattered Skies. On top of the pre-order discount I’m offering you an additional personal discount as a thank you for your support over the years – just enter [REDACTED] as your promo code at the checkout page before April 10th to get even more savings!
Anticheat is a #1 priority to us as some of you may know we’ve been able to defeat the cheating problem in recent Aftermath builds, and we’re going even further with an even more advanced Anticheat in Shattered Skies.
We also pledge that we won’t have microtransactions in the game. A one time purchase provides you with full access to all the game features, in game items, weapons and character cosmetics / weapon customization’s. There is no way to spend real cash money in game to gain any sort of advancement or advantage over another player, there is NO store. You must earn your gear, cosmetics and bragging rights by simply playing the game 🙂
Shattered Skies is designed to provide plenty of early and end game opportunities for players of all types. With great loot and extensive skills/leveling up opportunities as well as late game features like epic summoned world boss fights, exploration quests, and dynamic battles created between groups of players and clans by fortifying buildings.
All of this is set in super detailed gorgeous environment that is running butter smooth on relatively affordable PC hardware ( our ultra settings demo is running 60-90fps on nvidia 970 video card at 1080p resolution ). Check it out https://youtu.be/3LHWaeuRpX8
Once again thank you for being loyal customer and I hope to see you in Shattered Skies!
-Sergey
From the twenty-six-minute long video game walk-through by Artemis Knives, the lead developer, there seem to be a handful of improvements to Shattered Skies over Infestation Survivor Stories and Romero’s Aftermath. Right away you noticed the engine rendering and the lighting appear more along the lines of being eye candy now. Menus and UI are cleaner and easier to read. Crafting items now have their slots in the backpack storage system. Map design is supposedly more open, having even less choke points, which creates a disadvantage for campers. Of course, the biggest change from the previous reincarnations is the lack of zombies. Aside from PvP, those weapons will now be pointing at some alien species.
Sergey claims there will be absolutely no micro-transaction in Shattered Skies. The player would purchase the game once and be allowed to play for the “game life.” The FAQ section on their site has already hinted that there will be no season passes or paid expansion “gotchas.” This business model may last a year, or maybe a few, but ultimately I don’t see that lasting long term once game sales decline, which will inevitably happen. It would require frequent significant updates to draw in new users to regularly buy the game, which is unlikely to happen from how the dev teams display work ethic on past games. I forsee there being a business model change in one form or another. Most likely another game. Maybe Infestation: Romero’s Shattered SkieZ StorieZ?
All jokes aside, as long as the AI isn’t as brain-dead as they were in WarZ/I:SS/Aftermath, and the anti-cheat works, Sergey and Free Reign Entertainment LLC may be on to an engaging game. Possibly their best yet. How long that lasts, I have no idea, but time will most definitely tell.
Hardware Specs
Minimum hardware specifications:
Resolution: 1280×720
OS: Windows® 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64-bit versions only)
Processor: Intel Core i5-2400 | AMD FX-6100, or better
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 with 1 GB VRAM (current equivalent NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760) | AMD Radeon HD 7770 with 1 GB VRAM, or better
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 10 GB available space
Recommended hardware specifications (30 FPS):
Resolution: 1920×1080
OS: Windows® 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64-bit versions only)
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770 | AMD FX-8350, or better
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 | AMD Radeon R9 290, or better
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 20 GB available space
