FREE Starhawk Single-Player Campaign for PlayStation Plus members

Experience the emotional story of two brothers torn apart by the conflict over Rift Energy, a sacred and dangerous resource of power being ravaged and battled over by Humans and “The Outcast” — evolved mutated humans from Rift Energy exposure. Hired gun Emmett Graves is faced against his brother Logan, now the cold-blooded leader of The Outcast, in an effort to protect his former home of White Sands, save humanity, and possibly, his brother. Become a PlayStation Plus Member today to experience the Starhawk Solo Campaign free!

Starhawk Digital Download Versions Now Available – Your Way

· Starhawk Multiplayer Edition – $19.99
· Complete Starhawk Digital Version – $39.99

Today also marks the release of our massive 1.04 DLC update, which is free for the Starhawk community and included in all digital editions listed above. The 1.04 DLC update brings new gameplay modes, weapons, mechs, a ridiculous number of community changes… I’m losing my breath, just watch the video below.

If you enjoy frenetic multiplayer gameplay ranging from ravaged battlefields to burning skies to an explosive space symphonies rivaled by no other, or looking for an emotionally intense single-player experience, then this is your time to jump into Starhawk. Let us know what you think!

Yeah, you saw that right. We now have three, three ways for you to download the exact type of Starhawk experience you’re looking for on September 25th!

First you can get the complete Starhawk experience by downloading the Full version for $39.99. Another option — and this is an insane deal — is the Starhawk: Multiplayer-Edition for $19.99. This includes one of the best PlayStation 3 multiplayer experiences and all of the updates we’ve released since the game originally launched.

Last, but certainly not least, is a another killer deal for all PlayStation Plus members. You guys get the Starhawk: Single-Player Campaign for free. Yeah, that’s right, free.

And because I’m a tease, I’ll leave you with this: We have something else very tasty in store for PS Plus Members, so keep your eyes on the blog for another announcement very soon.

But wait… there’s more. As you know just about a month ago we released the Starhawk 1.03 Update that had a ton of new features, including two completely new — and free — maps on the planet of Cypress. The team and I were so stoked to see how happy the Starhawk community received it, that we’re excited to release our Starhawk 1.04 Update on September 25th with more free awesome-sauce, including three new gameplay modes!

Okay, so those are the new hella-fun gameplay modes, but there is a ton of other stuff in the Starhawk 1.04 Update as well. We’ve been following all of the community feedback and we’ve made a large number of changes. In my last blog post I wrote this massive wall of text covering all the various new things we added. So this time, I’m going to try and be more efficient on what should matter to you most.

• 3 New Gameplay Modes: Assault, Deathmatch Arena, Gatekeeper.
• 5 New “Small” Maps: Cypress Glade, Space Relay, Scourge Junction, Space Flotilla, Scourge Breaker.
• Updated pre-placed pick-ups on all maps (just like we did in Cypress) as well as updated Rift Barrel placement.
• 3 New Build & Battle Load-outs: Trooper, Lightweight and Speeder.
• New Tool-Tips are displayed on various options and buttons in the Uplink. including a display of all the units in each Load-Out and recommended player counts when you create a new game.
• MAW Rocket Launcher now can lock-on to the Sidewinder Jet Bike.
• Added four New national clan banners for our players in the Middle East: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the UAE.
• Quit Penalty for players that quit during a game — you get a loss posted and SkillScore hit.
• New “Up Next” display at the intermission screen of what map, mode and load-out is coming up in the next round.
• More score-limit and time-limit options when creating a game.
• All three new game modes are added to QuickMatch for matchmaking.
• Co-Op Prospector is now supported in Quick-Match for matchmaking into public Co-Op games.
• New Co-Op Prospector options for creating Private or Public games, difficulty, and game name.
• Public Co-Op Prospector games now are supported in the server-list.
• Bug fix that ensures that only Clan Leaders/Officers can edit the clan tag field.
• Added a PlayStation Store button to the Uplink for accessing Starhawk DLC.
• Increased starting Rift-Energy in Homeworlds.
• Slightly increased the Galloway Pistol’s head-shot damage.
• Removed the “Bruiser” Skill.
• Added a “Grinder” Skill that allows you to start with a Grinder in your weapon inventory.
• Grinder wind-up time has been reduced.
• Max range for the Grinder has been increased.
• In the server-list, the easy “Cake” and medium “Fist” game icons have been removed. You will still see the hard “Skull” game icons.
• Refined difficulty tuning on all Co-Op Prospector Missions (slightly easier).
• Increased XP payouts for all Co-Op Prospector Missions.
• XP payouts for capturing Tier-2 and Tier-3 bases in the Zones gameplay mode.
• Integrated Starhawk-specific network scan to help players resolve port issues.
• Added in-game scoreboard HUD for Dogfight & Arena Deathmatch gameplay modes.

Blurg! Even with my super-effective condensing, the list of new stuff is still looooong — but that’s a good thing for the Starhawk community! If you want the extended version of this list with all the juicy details, head on over to our LightBox Interactive Dev-Blog or the official website at Starhawkthegame.com.

Oh man, still so much to talk about. Focus Dylan. FOCUS!

If you remember back in May when we released Starhawk, I wrote a blog post about our close partnership with Major League Gaming to put together a major Starhawk Tournament for the community with great cash-money prizes. Well our good friends at MLG have been hard at work and I am wicked-excited to say that it’s “GAME-ON” for the Starhawk MLG Tourney, with $20,000 in cash prizes. Head over to the Starhawk MLG site for all the rules and details! Whatever your competitive level, there is an entry spot for everyone, and a number of different opportunities to win.

The Starhawk MLG Tourney is a two-month long tournament with $20,000 in cash prizes at stake for not only the grand champions, so listen up. The primary tournament will revolve around an official Starhawk MLG ladder. The more you win across all online game modes, the higher you’ll rank on the MLG Starhawk ladder. At the end of this two-month phase, the top 16 ranked players will be chosen to form two “Super-Teams” who will battle it out in a live-streamed grand finale, with eight players crowned the victors of the Starhawk MLG Tournament!

As a secondary option for all players to win, the MLG has also been really cool about planning four mini-competitions along the way for smaller $500 prizes. These “quick challenges” will take place over various weekends and award players with the highest score for a particular stat such as “Most Headshots” or “Most Pod Kills.” This is a great way to increase a player’s odds of winning a piece of the big cash prize.

So, get ready for the Major League Gaming Starhawk Tournament, go hone your skills and keep your mind on your money and your money on your mind!

“But Dylan… what about Starhawk DLC?”

Don’t worry! While we have been focusing on making sure we get you guys all of the free content first, we certainly didn’t forget about the DLC — we have a truck load of it ready to go live for all of you on September 25th as well.

However, as I’ve already established in this blog post, I am sometimes a tease. So… I’m not going to list any of the DLC just yet. We’ll make another blog post about it very soon! Let me leave y’all with this one DLC hint. Here’s a piece of concept art showing a couple different design ideas for our new DLC Build & Battle structure. I’m not going to tell you what it does but I can say it’s awesome.

I wonder what it could be?

Some of you may have seen my last blog post about the release of War of the Monsters as a PS Classic for PlayStation 3 and at the end of that post I mentioned the release of our next update for Starhawk was right around the corner!

Well…we are now around that corner and I can tell you that we are “GO” for our global release of the Starhawk 1.03 Update today at 2pm Central Time! I am saying “GO” as if I were a super-cool NASA scientist in the Curiosity control room! While the release of our 1.03 Update pales in comparison to the massive achievement of landing an SUV-sized robot on Mars (thanks NASA!). The 1.03 release will nonetheless make many Earthlings very happy!

“OK Dylan, what’s the patch got?” – Says the snarky gamer from the back corner of the internet. Tons of new stuff! There are player-requested features, an increased level cap, bug-fixes, and of course two new FREE maps on the planet of Cypress! Here’s the breakdown of everything we developed for you guys in the 1.03 Update.

Two New Maps on Cypress: Let’s jump right into the big stuff in 1.03 and that’s the 2 new maps! We really wanted to craft a new world that was more lush, more green, with lots of plants and huge trees and shallow water that you could drive and run through. Yet at the same time, we listened to some of the player feedback regarding our levels when we first launched Starhawk. Players wanted to see more cover and places for troops to hide. They also wanted to see some pre-built structures that you could go inside. Cypress: Collider and Cypress: Origin have all those things!

Cypress is the first planet where Rift Energy was discovered in the New Frontier and its where mankind built the first Rift research facility — including the very first Extractor! Of course, it’s all abandoned and overgrown by lush vegetation now.

The trees really provide a great layout for troops to run around, take cover behind, stage attacks and there are even some really cool mushroom thingies far up on the trunks of the trees so that troops can get out of the fray.

We also added a few pre-built structures with interiors. There aren’t tons of them since Starhawk still requires players to use smart Build & Battle tactics, but the ones that are there make a huge difference. There’s an old, destroyed particle collider that wraps around the center of the map named — you guessed it — Collider. There’s a massive run-down old Rift Extractor in the center of the map we call Origin. There are even some key buildings on both maps that have elevated doorways and interiors where you can go in and attack from a protected position. Be careful though, there is an open access port on the roof of those buildings, so you’ll have to cover your back! OK… mostly protected.

“mostly…”

Here are the satellite views for both of the Cypress maps so you guys can see how they’re setup. They may look like islands from this satellite view but you can drive anywhere! The water is shallow enough to run through, drive through and even build in. I absolutely love mud-bogging with the Razorback when I’m doing flag runs.

Both of the Cypress maps are wicked fun and add a fresh new layout. We think you guys are going to like them a ton and can’t wait to hear your feedback.

But that’s *JUST* the maps! The 1.03 Update has a bunch of other features too:

Prestige Levels: In the initial version of Starhawk, we supported levels 1-50. To be quite honest, we thought that would have the player community covered for quite some time. However, we had underestimated the rate at which people were going to get through the levels so we had to accelerate the release of our prestige levels for those players who are above 50. The Prestige levels in Starhawk are not numbers; they’re a Greek symbol ranking of ALPHA through OMEGA. The Greek symbol will be displayed by your name in-game. These are very hard ranks to achieve and the jump from level 50 to ALPHA is steep because these are really intended for the hard-core community.

New Space Homeworld “Waypoint”: In Starhawk, Homeworld’s are like lobbies. They are 3D levels where you and your friends can go to party-up, talk tactics and then pick a game to join. This new Homeworld is a cool space station. We added this because we really wanted players to enter a deep-space “lobby” to mess around in.

Team-Balance Fixes: There were some bugs in the party/clan cohesion system where servers would keep parties and clans together in *ALL* cases and this resulted in some brutally mis-matched games. This has been fixed! There were some other issues that resulted in messed-up team balance and we have resolved those as well. Should be a ton better!

Revamped Voice Chat System: During the initial launch of Starhawk we received reports from the player community about voice-chat dropping after a few games or in some cases, the voice-chat would simply not work. As you can imagine in a deep, team-based game like Starhawk, voice-chat is critical. So we did a ton of digging to find-out what the issue was and it ended up requiring a change to our Client/Server voice system. This change makes the VOIP far more stable and resolves the voice connection issues that some players had been experiencing in the past.

Push-to-Talk Option: This was requested by so many players, and in concert with the revamped Voice Chat System, the PTT option really is a great addition. Now players have the option to have their microphone turn on when they press L3 rather than automatically when they talk. I guess, too many players were being yelled at by their Moms, had crying babies in the background, or hell, maybe both! You can find the PTT option in the Audio Settings menu in the Uplink.

Vulture Jet-Pack Eject: Players are now allowed to dismount while flying around in a Starhawk if they have a handy dandy Vulture Jet-Pack equipped.

Rift Barrels on Mini-Map: To help aid players and their use of the Build & Battle system, we decided to add small icons on the mini-map where we’ve placed the Rift Energy Caches — those are the barrels that you shoot that burst open with Rift Energy that you can spend to build your arsenal of destruction. The blips on the map are displayed when the barrels are active and are *NOT* displayed when the barrels are waiting to respawn.

Bug Fixes: These are not as super-sexy as free maps, but the fact that they are fixed will really help the community. We also addressed some host migration issues, a number of crashes and network instability issues, and even the laggy pick-up bug was fixed as well.

Ranked Option: Another feature that was requested by players was really two requests related to how games post stats. The first point brought up by players was regarding stat-padding going on in password protected games, and since those games were password protected, they should not count as real ranked games. Now, you can still have a very private game with a password but your stats will not post. Also, if you are having a Clan vs. Clan game you have the option to turn stats on or off — because it might be a practice or scrimmage. Furthermore, if you are doing a Clan Scrimmage (your clan in both Rifter & Outcast slots) the stats will *NOT* post to the server. This is to keep clans from stat-padding in locked-out games.

Skills Shortcut at the Respawn Screen: Players really wanted a quick way to change skills without having to leave the respawn screen. So…we added a little tab in the upper right corner of the respawn screen that allows you to press TRIANGLE and jump right to the skills menu! Oh, and we also now allow you to change your skill at other places in the Uplink instead of only in-game.

Build & Battle Icons While Respawning: Another thing we did to help players when using the Build & Battle system was to display a simple graphic icon of each of the structures on the battlefield as the player is drop-poding into combat. This simple change really helps players know what structures are already built and helps them make better use of the stuff their team has built. Not to mention it helps let you know immediately where you should run when you crack-open your drop-pod!

Display Nearby Build & Battle Structures: There are now some new visuals to help players recognize Build & Battle structures that are built nearby. For starters, any time you place a structure; Starhawk very clearly displays how many are nearby. It also now highlights those nearby structures on your map *AND* displays some markers on the edge of the screen to help inform you that not only is there a structure nearby, but which direction it is.

Cooldowns for Host Kick and Team Switch: There were a number of exploits that could occur in the original version of Starhawk where players would change teams rapidly or a host would quickly kick a ton of players. That can no longer occur because we track when you perform one of these actions and block you from doing it again for a set amount of time — and we can tune the time if we need to.

Interactive Music Update: After playing Starhawk for so many hours, we really felt that the music was not kicking-in as frequently as we wanted it to. There were many times when you’d be in the heat of combat and there’d be no music at all. We felt this hurt the pacing and in fact some players in our community noticed the same thing. So the 1.03 Update includes some new tweaks to the interactive music system and the more frequent music makes a big difference.

Capture the Flag Scoring Change: We’ve been playing CTF in Starhawk a ton here in the studio and we’ve always felt that there were too many games ending in draws or times when the match would get into awkward stalemates. So with the 1.03 Update, we have changed one of the key rules for CTF and one of the key contributors to the stalemates. Now, to score a point in CTF, you need to take the enemy flag back to your base — period. Your team’s flag does *NOT* need to be there for you to score. Now certainly, your team still needs to play defense because you don’t want the enemy team taking your flag and scoring, but this change makes the pacing so much better. Much faster and far fewer draws and stalemates.

Sorting Unlocked Customization: Now this is more of a simple convenience thing but we changed the way the various characters and vehicle customization options are presented so that the unlocked ones are always displayed at the top of the list. Not a super-big change at all but I thought I’d include it here.

Drop-Pod Upgrade: One of the things that we were experimenting with during our Starhawk playtests to help combat “base-ravaging” was to make the Drop-Pod more deadly. Our whole design goal with the drop-pod system was to make the act of respawning in your home base an incredibly powerful weapon. This was to help combat against “base-ravaging”. After a lot of review, and play testing and tweaking, we decided to upgrade the drop-pods to be more maneuverable *AND* have an increased impact radius. This along with some changes we made to the respawn timer really makes a huge positive impact on the reduction of “base-ravaging”.

Custom Music via XMB: In Warhawk we added support for your own music and we’re doing the same in Starhawk. The 1.03 Update now allows you to play your own music through the XMB. So if you want to experience Starhawk’s unique Build & Battle gameplay while blaring Pat Benatar you totally can!

Now that was an epic post! Sorry for the wall of text but there is a ton of cool stuff packed in this update. I wanted to make sure you had all the info, and then some.

So now that this blog post is done I’ve got to get back to work. We still have even more great stuff on the way for all of you in our next 1.04 Update! I’ve already exhausted my daily allotment of blog words but the 1.04 Update is another meaty one. Stuff like two entirely new gameplay modes, 5 new smaller layouts, even some new Build & Battle load-outs, and a bunch of other stuff too.

And of course we have been working on DLC as well, but we’ve been prioritizing all the free content for you guys first. Let me end this post with a little DLC tease that’s in development. Yes, I cleared this with the SONY corporate hive-mind and they are totally ok with me showing this behind-the-scenes pic.

That’s it for now, enjoy the 1.03 Update, we look forward to your continued feedback.

We didn’t just have a ton of fun making the War of the Monsters — we were very happy with how the finished product turned out. The game was ridiculously fun to play, and players around the world loved it! So when Jeff pinged me the other day to tell me that War of the Monsters is going to be released as a PS2 Classic on the PS3 I was crazy-excited. Of course, I wanted to write a quick post!

The first thing I did was dig through some of my old archives and find some really cool old artwork from back when we were developing War of the Monsters. The image below is something I put together during the game’s production to summarize the core combat mechanics in the game. We used it internally to make sure everyone on the team understood the basics of game’s combat. What’s really cool is that now, almost a decade later, you can look at this combat sheet and still get a quick overview of the game before you download it from the PlayStation Store tomorrow.

Here’s another cool image I found. It’s an early color comp I created to show the team how we were going to reference old movie posters to develop our color and lighting palette, and how we’d adapt it for our game environments. Man, I’m having fun digging through all my old files. Thanks, Jeff!

These were internal docs, so cut me some slack on their style. When you’re preparing materials for internal studio communication it’s often not as flashy or super-produced like you might see from a full-up marketing team. And hey, this stuff is almost a decade old!

Oh snap, check these out! These are the level-loading screens for each of the battles when you play through single player battle mode! These were all painted by a super-talented artist by the name of Owen Richardson, who also worked with Dave Jaffe and Scott Campbell on the new Twisted Metal for PS3.

Here’s another bit of trivia: Bet you didn’t know that I also did some 3D modeling on War of the Monsters too — back in those days everyone had to do a bit of everything! This is Preytor; I had a great time modeling and texturing him. He’s a massive praying mantis with a nimble fighting style, and one of only two monsters in the game with the ability to fly.

It’s crazy to look back on War of the Monsters and see those low-poly, low-res PS2 graphics — a reminder of how far we’ve come with the PS3. One thing remains the same though: great gameplay is timeless. Luckily, War of the Monsters is super-fun to play and holds up nicely. I hope you all download this PS2 Classic from your PS3 on Tuesday when the Store Update goes live!

And in case you were wondering, we are still totally hard at work on Starhawk! We have a ton of stuff ready for release very soon — including our 1.3 Update, which has a bunch of new features and fixes, as well as the awesome (and free) Cypress Map Pack! Here’s a sneak-peek at a couple screen shots of Cypress, but check back here on the blog real soon for a complete breakdown of the Starhawk 1.3 Update, as well as more in-depth info on the new free map pack!

Stay tuned and, as always, rock on!

But, as I mentioned in my last post, the release of Starhawk is really just the beginning of our ongoing support for our international community. And to support our online multiplayer community we have some really great announcements for you all today. First, we’re honored that Major League Gaming has taken a strong interest in Starhawk with its blend of shooter and strategy gameplay, and they’re kicking things off right with a tournament worth $20,000 in prizes so get over to http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/starhawk and sign-up! And if you missed it last night, be sure to check-out the live stream that we did for the MLG Starhawk exhibition with pro gamers Tsquared, Hastr0, and GoldenBoyFTW! We cover single-player, co-op, and of course hot multiplayer action. Witty commentary supplied by me, of course ;-).

Secondly, and this is the announcement that you guys probably were *NOT* expecting…there was a lot of discussion here at LightBox Interactive and Sony Santa Monica on how best to support the community and keep our player base all together as one cohesive group. We really didn’t like how in Warhawk when we released a new map pack, it forced these divisions on our players. And after we released three expansions, our player community was pretty fractured. With Starhawk that ends! We are incredibly excited to announce that all map packs for Starhawk will be free. Yeah, you read that right…FREE. Whenever we release a map pack you won’t have to pay a friggin’ dime! And we’ve already started the early stages of our next map pack for you guys. Check out these very early sketches from the new planet of Cypress! A lush, swampy world that’s home to an abandoned research facility that many years ago was responsible for researching the mysteries of Rift Energy.

Now certainly we’ll have some paid DLC content in the future as well as our free map packs, but we’re still playing around with what that will be. We’re going to be looking to see what the player feedback is on Starhawk in the coming weeks to help steer the DLC that we develop for you all. This is our commitment to all of you, the players. I hope you all get a chance to enjoy Starhawk – not only with today’s retail release but for the months and years to come!

Starhawk is not your normal off-the-shelf shooter. We’ve certainly taken some chances with this game, but it’s gonna be worth it: The Build & Battle system alters the traditional shooter recipe in such a way that when you play other shooters you may find yourself frustrated that you can’t build bunkers, walls, outposts, and all the other stuff that Starhawk lets you build. So if you’re a shooter fan looking for a change of pace, definitely pick up Starhawk!

Nothing ever comes easy though, and integrating Build & Battle certainly took a bunch of iteration and refinement both internally during production here at LightBox Interactive and also during our private and public betas. You guys were really great beta testers, so as a “thank you” for your participation we’re giving you two exclusive items.

The first is The Hand of the Founder. It’s an exclusive character accessory for anyone who played in the BETA. It’s a gold, glowing, atom-looking thing that is bonded to your right hand. It’s intended to be a way to show off to your friends and everyone else online that you were one of Starhawk’s founders. That you had a hand in its creation!

The second item is the Warhawk Paint Set. It includes two exclusive vehicle paint schemes that you can use to customize any of your vehicles in Starhawk. The Warhawk Paint Set is available to any Starhawk Beta tester who was *ALSO* a Warhawk player. You get the olive-drab military look of Warhawk’s Eucadians as well as the stealthy, black and gunmetal look of the Chernovans.

Both The Hand of the Founder and the Warhawk Paint Set are Starhawk Beta exclusives and are intended to be very special “thank you” items that will never be re-released or sold. And we’ll be making a follow-up post on the specifics of how we’ll be distributing these Beta gifts.

Like you heard me say in the video, the release of Starhawk on May 8th is just the beginning! We’re going to be continuing to release updates and refinements to Starhawk to make sure the community is getting the best Starhawk experience we can provide.

The team has been working all hours at Santa Monica Studio and here at LightBox Interactive to finish up Starhawk and we wanted to take a bit of time to share our latest Singleplayer trailer. Most people out there really only know Starhawk for its online multiplayer, which totally kicks ass and was certainly our team’s focus. But the fact is that Starhawk has a very fun and unique solo campaign too… and NO, it’s not just an MP tutorial with bots!

Starhawk’s Build & Battle mechanics are fully supported by the Universe we’ve created. The war between the Rifters and the Outcast. The conflict between Emmett and Logan. Even humanity’s rush for “blue-gold” that spans the Frontier. The Starhawk solo campaign puts you right in the middle of it and I can’t wait for you guys to get your hands on it when it drops here in North America on May 8th!

Oh, and if you haven’t yet… GO PRE-ORDER THE GAME! And if you do it at GameStop you’ll get upgraded to the Limited Edition for free!… Go…. pre-order…. game…. must…. generate… sales….. numbers…
[/endtrance]

So yeah, keep tabs on www.StarhawkTheGame.com and the Blog for the latest Starhawk deats. Sorry I can’t write more but I gotta get back to work! Rock on!

We were so happy with the response to Starhawk at PAX that the SCEA marketing machine leveled-up, cast Videozzaga and summoned a quick video of our Santa Monica Sr. Producer Harvard Bonin talking with people at the show in Seattle after they got hands-on with Starhawk!



Not only was it great to see people loving Starhawk at PAX, the team and I love seeing coverage and buzz about the game start to pick up speed. And with our announcement last week that early access keys for the Starhawk Public Beta will be included in Uncharted 3, well… things are now moving forward at ludicrous speed! It was great to read all the comments, tweets and Facebook posts from players who are just now getting introduced to Starhawk’s gameplay and universe and the LightBox Interactive team and I can’t wait to see all of you online in early 2012!

But Dylan, you ask, what about now? Did you forget about us? What about all of the die-hard Warhawk fans who waited patiently for Starhawk to emerge from the shadowy nether regions of game development?

Five words: Private. Beta. Starting. In. November!

Let me explain.

Normally before a team releases a Public Beta for a game, the dev team goes through a phase known as the closed beta or “Private Beta.” This is when the dev team works very closely with a small group of colleagues from the publisher, quality assurance (QA) team, or very close friends to make sure things are solid, the gameplay is tuned, big bugs are squashed, etc. It’s all about a tight feedback loop and close interaction with the developer.

And we want the team here at LightBox Interactive to have that close communication with our Warhawk fans! Even as I write this blog post I’m still blown away that SCEA has approved this!

Ok, let’s break it down:

We’re going to be starting the Private Beta in November and we’ll be sending a bunch of our Warhawk players (European players too!!) special email invites with Starhawk Private Beta keys. We’re going to be letting players into the Private Beta in waves so we can manage the server load, watch the game balance analytics, etc. The order in which players are granted access is a dark art known only to Sith-IT-Managers and Gywn, Lord of Cinder. But, suffice it to say it’s a mix of your rank/level in Warhawk, your involvement in the Warhawk community, and a few other magical parameters.

So keep checking your email like a Hawk!

Like what I did there?

SCEA has setup a secure forum where all the Warhawk players that are granted access into the Starhawk Private Beta will be able to talk directly with me, and some of our other team members here at LightBox Interactive. We’ll be posting our special PlayStation Network handles so you know when you’re playing with one of us online and we’ll be on VOIP in-game so you can talk directly to us if you want to!

We’re really looking for lots of feedback to help make sure Starhawk is as solid and tuned as possible. So we’ll be actively requesting comments on tuning changes and other game updates that we’ll be making to Starhawk throughout the Private Beta.

And this is a *key* part of the process because we are going to be validating our SkillScore player ranking system as well as weapon and Build & Battle game balance. Our new Hot-Fix system lets us really keep up with the demands of the community so we’ll be trying to push updates almost every day.

We’ll be going into more details on which features will be included in the Private Beta in the coming weeks, but for now, I hope our Warhawk player community is as excited about this opportunity as we are!!!

And for all the Warhawk players that are going to be helping us play Starhawk during the Private Beta, we have a special “gift” planned for all of you when Starhawk is officially released. Oh the
anticipation… THE ANTICIPATION!!!!!

*deep breath*

Ok…what’s next? Oh yeah…

And lastly, no blog post would be complete without my obligatory mention of our website, www.StarhawkTheGame.com —so keep tabs on it because SCEA will be updating it with all the latest as things really start to get rolling for Starhawk!

Rock on!

But don’t worry! Don’t despair! We’ve got the full, extended version of the Starhawk Space Combat Trailer right here. Click it! Play it! Let it burn its shooter-goodness deep into your eyes!

So this video was cut together by our team in San Diego, California and was captured from gameplay on our Capture the Flag Small Orbital Platform map. The trailer gives a really great taste of what our space combat is like in Starhawk! You may have seen some of our previous gameplay vids that were recorded on one of our Acid Sea maps with its cool-looking terrain, jagged spires, and noxious acid. But what’s really awesome about the Orbital Space Platform maps is that they feel urban, with city and street combat and that’s something that we’re really happy about!

The team and I here at LightBox Interactive really want each of our environment types to have a unique feel, but still all based on the fast-paced troop, vehicle and aircraft gameplay that our fans love. And because of each environment’s unique structure and style, our Build & Battle mechanics feel really cool and fresh in each of the environment as well. We absolutely love this and hope you all will too because it allows players to not only adapt their combat tactics per environment, but their support and building tactics as well.

Up to this point we’ve pretty much only showed Starhawk at venues where you needed a pass or some kind of credentials like E3, Comic-Con, PAX, Gamescom, or the upcoming Eurogamer Expo, or GAMEfest. Basically conferences, expos, closed-door meetings, and back alleys — that all changes now!

Maybe some of you have heard of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Fantastic Fest here in Austin. It’s an awesome film festival specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action… ya know, “fantastic” movies! They have an arcade portion of the festival focusing on indie games called Fantastic Arcade that is totally open to the public (and FREE) and it’s held at the awesome HighBall Lounge! So we thought, let’s setup a LAN party and give the public a chance to play Starhawk!

So if you’re in the Austin area and interested in getting your hands on Starhawk, swing by the Highball on Thursday, September 22nd starting around 5pm. We’re gonna have a LAN party of 12 PS3 stations, each decked out with a 40” SONY Bravia EX 400 HD Monitor and of course Astro headsets. We’ll be holding a Capture the Flag tournament too and there will be prizes but honestly, I’m not sure what the prizes are going to be but Sony is providing them.

We’ve also got something really special planned for all our fans that show up to the HighBall for our Starhawk LAN Party — It’s a voucher code for an exclusive multiplayer skin for Starhawk!

So swing by, play Starhawk, play the other games at Fantastic Arcade, hang out and meet the LightBox Interactive team!

Oh, and one last thing! Here’s a Starhawk avatar if you’d like to use it for Twitter, NeoGaf or some other forum.

Keep your eye’s on www.StarhawkTheGame.com and the PlayStation.Blog here for the latest updates and announcements on Starhawk — and boy, do we have some big ones right around the corner!

Rock out with your Hawk out!

Their response was “It’s a mega-con of film, games, toys, and comics. Yes, tons of people. Yes, its awesome. The unstable, explosive imagination isotopes of awesome.”

So after all of 3 seconds of deliberation, we were like “@&!*@#$, #@%!*$, *&!?!@#!!!”

That’s an enthusiastic YES. Comic-Con is just the perfect venue to talk about Starhawk’s universe, our characters and the story that drives the Solo Campaign. So, BAM! check this out:

It’s a video that we captured from the game and shows how we tell story in the Starhawk. It’s done with a really great kind of animated “wanted” poster style, punctuated with Rift Energy. They’re Emmett’s memories. His Rift visions. They’re being produced by a studio here in Austin, Powerhouse Animation (they worked on the Penny Arcade Adventures animations). We’ve also got some really cool tech that seamlessly blends between the animations and the game (as you can see in the video). This really makes the solo experience smooth and buttery. We didn’t want any experiential speed bumps in the solo campaign. You can sit down, start the game and smoothly flow from mission to mission with no loading screens!

So, yeah, we’re having our Starhawk panel at Comic-Con on Sunday July 24th, 10am – 11am in room 25AB. It’s gonna be moderated by Greg Miller from IGN and we’re going to be showing some never before seen art and videos of the journey and process we took from the initial game concept to the Starhawk that we have today. Getting really in depth with Emmett Graves (our hero character) the universe of the New Frontier, Rifter Unions, Outcast Warbands, and how Rift Energy took away the only family Emmett had.

Family is a classic western story element and for Starhawk, it seemed really, really fitting for us. Our writter, Koen Wooten, has really been able to bring the Starhawk Universe to life and he’ll be at the panel on Sunday too! Did you know he worked on the props for the Coen Brother’s movie True Grit!! Consider that random Starhawk fact a freebie, folks!

But it’s more than just the western elements for us. It’s been about striking the right balance of advanced sci-fi with the texture and warmth of the western themes. And it’s this balance that motivates all of our creative work — from the design of all the stuff in the Starhawk universe, down to even the compositions we choose for screen shots and illustrations.

All this stuff comes together to create Starhawk’s unique universe and we’re excited to let people at Comic-Con get their hands on some singleplayer gameplay. ‘Cause ya know, the solo mission was only available to the press behind closed doors at E3! So swing by the Sony booth and get your Starhawk on! Oh, and yes, I’m told there will be Starhawk bags being handed out.

Did you know that if you put enough swag bags *in* another swag bag, you’ll rip a hole in spacetime and be able to flap your wings like a butterfly and cause future hurricanes or some crap like that. I don’t know. I saw it in an Ashton Kutcher movie once I think.

OK, that’s it from me again. Time to get back to work.

Rock on!!

PS: And I *do* feel like I’m going through Uncharted3 BETA withdrawal! Maybe I should check myself into a clinic!!!