Entropy : Zero 2 - December 2021 Update news

It is Wednesday my dudes. It’s also UPDATE TIME.

Entropy : Zero 2 will be released on Steam

As stated in our Media Tempest, at the time of writing we had not yet begun the Steam approval process.

Now we know for sure - Entropy : Zero 2 will be arriving on Steam. The store page is already up and you can view it right now, here.

You can go right ahead and add it to your wishlists!

This is a monumental milestone for us, which kind of, technically, maybe, suggests we’re now ‘beta’ rather than alpha. More on that in a minute.

We are extremely grateful and happy to be able to say we’re releasing on Steam, alongside EZ1.

Where are we with Entropy : Zero 2?

We still have a lot of work to do. You’re probably tired of hearing that, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t the case. We still have some things to tweak and fix.

Most of these issues are things that we caught over the last year during player testing. As well as these fixes, a brand new map is being built by myself. This map is a complete overhaul of the Xentarium you may have seen in some of our screenshots and streams.

It’s hard to properly explain why we decided to revisit this map without writing paragraphs upon paragraphs. Essentially we thought the map was fine visually, but functionally it didn’t live up to our standards. There are a bunch of new features and behaviours that we have with our Xen creatures (like breeding, for example), and these abilities were being limited by the design of the old Xentarium. We also found that players were too confined in the old map which led to some unfairness in encounters.

The new map is spookier and puts our Xen creature AI on full display. The new Xentarium consists of Xen infested mines. A continuous power-struggle is occurring in the mines between Pit Drones and Bullsquids. There are also Stukabats, Zombigaunts and plenty of headcrabs.

A big shoutout and thank you to Beefbacon for allow us to use his Xen assets to expand our pallet. This map is still in development but we’re already having a lot of fun with it. It’s a loud and frightful place. We’ll show it off properly when it’s polished.

Aside from this new map we’re also in the process of filling in gaps with our lines. We’re pretty happy right now with the lines we have written and we have just a few pages (roughly!) left to record and implement. This could change at any time if we deem more lines are needed, but as I said; we’re pretty happy.

On top of all of this, we now have the task of implementing our achievements.

What about a Release date?

We still are not committing ourselves to a release date yet. It’s kind of hard to pin these things down. We won’t know until we know. The moment will come but until then, I’m afraid we have to remain ambiguous to prevent creating false expectations.

We’re aiming for 2022, sooner rather than later. We really want to get this into your hands.

One thing we do know for sure, is that we’re going to shift the release of our Developer Commentary to a post-release patch. We have bigger fish to fry right now and feel like commentary can come after we’ve released. We’ll make it a retrospective thing. Blixibon has been hard at work implementing lots of really neat features to Mapbase that enhance commentary, and we’ll be using those when we reach that stage.

What about beta testing?

Sometime early next year we will want to test our new implementations and changes. The best way we can do that moving forward is through a public beta program.

We will be creating a pool of playtesters randomly selected from a list of applicants. These applicants will get to play Entropy : Zero 2, tell us if they find any bugs and fill out a survey when they’ve finished playing.

The big news is that you can apply to be a playtester right now using this form.

If you’re selected, we’ll be in touch when the time comes.

Another year passes

Thanks for being so patient.

The lines are often blurred when you’re building freehand like this. I learnt with EZ1 that by creating in this way, the product writes itself at times and often cannot be completely defined until the last phases of development. I’m confident that we can define Entropy : Zero 2 now.

This year has been exceptionally busy for the Entropy : Zero 2 team. Our narrative has been finalized. We know what the game consists of, where it starts and how it all ends. We have made some major strides this year.

I want to say thanks to all of the people who have helped us test Entropy : Zero 2 this year. Your feedback and comments have been invaluable.

The team and I might try and stream sometime before Christmas. I’ll tweet about it if that’s the case. Perhaps we can have some traditional, festive Entropy : Zero 2 fun!

Until then, here’s a new track from Spencer to listen to: