One of the stretch goals in the 2013 Kickstarter for the cyberpunk RTS Satellite Reign was co-op multiplayer. Sadly, it didn't happen: The goal was $1 million, and the campaign raised only $610,000. But developer 5 Lives Studios decided to go ahead and do it anyway, and online player is now in open beta and will soon go into full release.
Online co-op play has actually been in development for awhile now, but was only rolled out to the main branch of the game this week, so 5 Lives could take advantage of more widespread testing now that the most critical issues have been addressed. Players will now have the choice of starting either a single-player or multiplayer game; selecting multiplayer will then give the option to either host a game with an existing save, or join another one as a client.
“We were having issues for some time with random disconnections, as well as an issue where clients would suddenly see everything stop (e.g. agents not responding, enemies and civs standing still), but everything is fine for the host. We're fairly confident we've solved this issue, but if anyone experiences this, please let us know,” the studio wrote. “We're also aware that you may not be able to see games hosted in other regions. We're using the Unity networking system, which uses their own relay servers, located around the world. Currently, games hosted in other regions don't seem to be showing up in the server browser—however games hosted by overseas Steam friends should be visible if you change the filtering to 'Friends.' We've contacted Unity about possible solutions.”
A full rollout date hasn't been announced but the team said co-op multiplayer will “officially” launch at the end of the week, which is just about upon us. A co-op open beta feedback thread is available here.
Thanks, PC Invasion.
