Gigantic E3 2015

Taking a look at another behind closed doors opportunity, we have Gigantic which is coming in the near future with cross-play between Xbox One and Windows 10. Content will move freely between both versions of the game so progress isn't locked to one platform. What we were shown within the meeting was basically a quick match of the game against developers whom were playing from the office back home. During the quick match we were given a sort of walkthrough of what was going on along with the ability to ask questions about what was happening. This continued after the match as well with more information and questions about Gigantic. First off, there's going to be a beta coming in around August which you can now sign up for which will help them test the game and they were hoping for a 2015 release of the title. The game is played in 5v5 combat where each team has their own Gigantic AI guardian. If you lose your massive guardian, the game ends. These creatures mostly stayed back most of what we saw and weren't too crazy in design as they said they're still working on more and to make them unique. The AI monster will also provide benefits to the team like sweeping the path occasionally for damage or totally disrupting map flow. An example was given that a sniper perch may be destroyed and then a ramp will form to benefit the other team. It'll be interesting to see in a further degree just how much these creatures will affect gameplay. Finally, the creatures can take three hits before they die. These are triggered events of the sort and are not just quick slashes to kill them.

When designing the various characters for play the team decided that each player would fit a role. You're not allowed duplicates of players on the field so there will be much discussion over selection of roles before the match. Every character brings something different to field like some characters are more geared towards players whom like shooters whereas other are more medic or support character like. This is balanced out well from what I saw and it gives everyone a purpose out there. Characters also have abilities which are levelled and gained throughout the match which greatly affect combat. Some of these abilities were shown during play and really did seem to give momentary advantages. We also clearly saw how roles are played out with a heavy combat character taking on a sniper from which that player seemed to only be able to run away as they couldn't do much at close distance. Players will also be able to occasionally summon creatures from certain points to defend position areas or to generally provide additional distraction across the battlefield. These creatures also can evolve if they are left long enough providing better bonuses like a certain health giver creature we saw the developer come across during the match.



Final Details
Gameplay seems fairly quick at this point for the game which console players are used to and I thought was well paced. I'll just be going over final details here to help clarify certain aspects. Cross-play is optional to opt-out for players in case they feel the PC or maybe even the Xbox One might provide too much of an advantage. They'll have at least three maps, I say this as apparently the case of building them is an extensive and long process. They hope to have more, though we'll have to wait and see. I'll also mention that they said more maps will be added post launch to the title as well. This will be free to play for both Xbox One and Windows 10 players with a beta coming in August 2015. I hope that captures everything from the meeting, if you have any questions feel free to let me know and I'll try to answer them or contact a developer about it. Follow the site for more information in the future and an eventual review of the title.

All E3 2015 Coverage