Friendly Fire Drill You know that those old-school flash grenades aren’t actually effective anymore (seriously, what would that be like? like being bombed by fireworks, I guess), but it’s pretty sweet to see that you can now summon up an actual literal flash grenade just as you enter the fray. Just click on any teammate to blow up the surrounding area with a bright flash. Ace in the Hole If a teammate is in trouble, there’s a “bait” device that lets you call in the cavalry. You have to use it twice for it to go off, but if you successfully call the cavalry, it’s a good thing. Wreck ‘em, Jack If you hear gunfire, you can now use your flash bangs to get around the battlefield (just like one of those cool spy movies). As long as you’re at close range, you’ll dash to the next enemy in your path. Just don’t die. P.O.V. A little more information from our team members would be nice every once in a while. New Player Cards This update also included team cards with individual biographies and images for every member of the team. The cards were taken from players’ Facebook pages, and it’s kind of interesting to see just how colorful and crazy everyone’s backgrounds are. Aren’t you just so pleased to see this? That the game is now a full year old? Congrats! You did a great job playing this game! You made it! You’re done reading. But don’t you want to know what happens next? Of course you do. So, read below! You might’ve seen the trailers, but the story behind the scenes of this one is insane. How cool does this video look? Here’s the story behind the trailer: you are a hacker investigating the murder of a friend. (Hey! If you like that premise, maybe you’ll like this one, too!) As the investigation progresses, the people around you begin to disappear. The coolest thing about this game is its art direction. Every scene has so much detail. We’ve talked to so many people who’ve experienced this, and even watching the footage of it can feel like you’re watching a real horror movie. You might be wondering how this all fits together. Well, you will get that in-game. The main story will unfold as it happens. It might even affect the gameplay because the game has lots of choices that can really affect things. We can’t spoil much more than that! What we can say, though, is that the game is really well-paced. Each day is going to last a certain amount of time, and the player is constantly going to be moving from location to location, trying to get back to the central base while also exploring the world. In order to make sure it’s still immersive, we’ve included hints of the game’s story in the locations you’ll explore, so the environments don’t feel so empty, too. The game is so big that it covers several genres at the same time! So what are you waiting for? You know what you want to do, right? So do we, so let’s make this thing happen! I’ll tell you right now: when this game was first revealed at E3 last year, everyone was saying, “Wait, so, wait, it’s, like,… a game? A game about you as a hacker?” So what’s changed? The plot of this game isn’t so easily explained. I mean, if we tried to tell you right now, you might just get confused! You know what I mean, though. You know what I mean… You know what I’m talking about. The thing is, this game is about hacking, but not the usual kind. You’ll be hacking the environment with the tools at your disposal. It won’t just be looking around for hacking points, but also… using a… You know what I’m talking about. You really shouldn’t be afraid of it, though. We have plenty of time to explain how this awesome action-puzzle game works. But until then, you can always stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes action. Here’s our brand new update for you! There’s a lot of great stuff here. Let’s get right to it! Our favorite new feature is the crafting system. You don’t know about this, but there’s a crafting system in the game. It’s called hacking! Every item has a rarity. You need to do the right amount of work on a base item to improve it enough to make it rare. (Seriously, the rarity system is based on the actual number of hours you spend at it. If you work the game too much, you can’t enjoy the fruits of your labor.) Here’s what else we have to show you! Hacking tools In this picture, you can see all the different tools at your disposal to hack things and collect resources. We’ve improved all of the hacks in-game so you can access new places and find interesting information more easily. The hacking itself hasn’t changed, of course, but your tools have been improved! The hacking mechanics are based on a system called “Hacking for Points.” The hacking points mechanic will give you a different experience in each location, so players can feel as though they’re really in the world. That being said, we don’t expect that you’ll be able to hack everything out there, so you might have to figure out other ways to hack things and solve problems. You can try hacking in our alpha! For the time being, we’ll leave it open to players for one week. If you plan on having fun in there, we might open it up longer for beta. Arena Alpha When you have your first conversation with Darius, you’ll be able to meet one of the first characters you’ll meet in the game. You’ll also be able to take on some of the missions in the very early version of the story. There are two missions you can take now, one at each island. Hacking mechanics Hacking was already a key part of the game, but it’s evolved. Now, when you hack a machine, you’ll get information about it. You can also hack machines to get an item or level up. But it gets better. You can hack an item and learn what it does. Once you have an item, you can then reverse engineer it, figure out its crafting system, and then craft that item to make more items. And when you do that, you’ll get the data of the item, so you can understand more about it. And if that weren’t enough, there’s one last thing we need to talk about: The “Pause” Hacking Mode. Yes! You can press the ‘H’ key on the keyboard while using a hacking tool to pause the game. You can use your data for the hacking mechanic, which makes sense because you don’t want to waste your time looking for materials. But if you’re hacking a door, and suddenly a zombie jumps in front of it, you can’t just stop and run away. What can you do? Now, when you’re in pause mode, you can run and hide behind any object, while not pausing your hacking tool. And the same goes for bosses. Maybe you should stop hacking? Nope! You can ignore everything and hack away. Other things Well, those are the main things, at least. There’s even more coming from the guys working on this game. Check out all of this cool stuff! A good amount of the story is happening in the world of the game. The main story will play out over the coming weeks, but there’s still some side quests left to do. You’