Leveling Up the Core Experience

Since the launch of Novus Prime in December 2010, we’ve learned a lot about what our players enjoy most about the Novus Prime experience. With Vindication, we knew we had to deliver more missions, ships, weapons, avatar items, outfits, and more – but we’re also excited to give our community their #1 request: raising the level cap from 20 to 30 and adding tons of new rewards!

With the new expansion, players will now unlock rewards at every other level. This means players who’ve already reached the rank of Captain at level 20 will instantly earn several rewards when they log in to Novus Prime: Vindication. Newcomers will earn more rewards than ever before as they rise up the ranks to Commander.

Players will find several new items in the shop to improve their game experience in Novus Prime, including the Tech Goggles & Enemy Scanner bundle, the super-fast Obsidian Blade fighter ship, and our new Memory Conditioning Conduit bundle, which comes with three virtual items and permanently triples your XP point gains so you can rank up even faster.

Meet the Obsidian Race

We’re also expanding Novus Prime’s lore as the new playable Obsidian race joins Earth Fleet against the Bot armada. Aside from some concept art we’ve cleverly hidden away in Novus Prime’s VIP area, not much has been made public about the Obsidian race until now. With Vindication, everyone can join the fight as an Obsidian fighter with the Obsidian Pilot Suit bundle, which comes with some seriously unique custom animations as well as the Obsidian Blade, the fastest player ship in the game.

Here’s your first glimpse at the new Obsidian technology before Vindication goes live:

Finally, we know our veteran players have been clamoring for more missions (that’s our second most requested update), so we’ve truly expanded Novus Prime’s core content this time around. Novus Prime: Vindication delivers two challenging new missions (“Claustrophobia” and “Wrecker’s Waltz”) as well as Master versions of every current mission, so there’s no shortage of adventures to be had with your friends in the cold confines of space. Keep an eye out for the new Executioner mini-boss!

More Ways to Join the Fight

We’re big fans of the recently-redesigned PlayStation Home core experience, and one of its coolest features is the opportunity to find great new games in each of the Districts. Starting January 11th, players can warp straight to the Novus Prime space station from our new Action District location – just look for the colossal hovering spaceship.

Last but not least, we’re celebrating the launch of Novus Prime: Vindication and our recent 1-year anniversary in PlayStation Home by giving away this free Personal Lightning Shield virtual item as a token of appreciation for our fans!

Click here to get your free code

It’s been just over a year since we made PlayStation Home our own home for quality game development, and we’ve got big plans for 2012! We’d like to say thanks to everyone in the PlayStation Home community for your support, and we look to hearing what you think about Novus Prime: Vindication.

If you love free stuff, don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to get the latest Novus Prime updates and code giveaways straight to your new feed, and remember to Join the Fight on Wednesday, January 11th!

We’re excited to announce Novus Prime: Escalation, our biggest expansion yet for Novus Prime in PlayStation Home, is going live on March 31 with tons of new content. The Hellfire Games team has been working on Escalation for quite some time, and we can’t wait to see it go live! Until then, I’d like to give you a sneak peek at what to expect in Novus Prime: Escalation.

Multiplayer Sci-Fi Action, Escalated

At its core, Novus Prime is a free-to-play multiplayer space combat shooter that can be played cooperatively or solo. As a pilot recruited by the Earth fleet against the insidious Bot armada, you’ll learn the basics of space flight, personalize your ship with custom weapons and special add-ons, and embark on missions to earn XP and level up.

With Novus Prime: Escalation, we’re essentially doubling the game’s content in one huge expansion. It’s our biggest update yet, featuring new missions, enemies, weapons, companion bots, avatar items, leaderboards, voiceovers, a completed pilot outfit, a new personal space with zero-gravity simulator, and more.

We listen to our players to provide the strongest content offering possible in each update, and Novus Prime: Escalation outdoes every previous update so far. We hope you’ll like the latest content, and if you’re new to the Novus Prime universe, we hope you’ll stick around and check out what’s still to come!

The Metagame

Because our game lives in PlayStation Home, the full Novus Prime experience doesn’t end with completing missions and leveling up. The Novus Prime space station serves as a social hub for players to meet up and hang out, enjoy a nice spacewalk, shop for new items, and upgrade their ships for battle. Novus Prime: Escalation takes that experience further with a new personal space, the Officer’s Quarters, and a private hangar where players can play custom games with friends, view their customized ship up close, and track their score on a private leaderboard.

From concept to completion, a lot of work goes into creating new spaces for our players! We’re fortunate to have some über-talented artists on hand to create some of the best looking environments in PlayStation Home. For example, here’s the concept art for the Officer’s Quarters below:

And here’s how it looks in-game, complete with spacewalk simulator and decorative Novus Prime artwork on the walls:

We asked our community on the PlayStation Forums what they wanted to see in this update, and the majority wanted more missions and their own personal apartment. So, ask and ye shall receive, plus a whole lot more!

Developing for PlayStation Home

One of the great things about developing for PlayStation Home is the ability to continually gather feedback directly from our players in-game and make timely updates to make sure we’re providing our community with the most satisfying game experience possible. It’s super-gratifying to jump into the Novus Prime space immediately after an update goes live and talk to players about the new content as they check it out in real time.

Novus Prime launched in PlayStation Home in December 2010 and already boasts a very active community, with dedicated players constantly competing for the top leaderboard spot and new names showing up each week. It’s feedback from players like you that keeps us cranking out quality content each month, so keep telling us what you want to see in the next update!

We’re having a blast working on the premier sci-fi multiplayer experience for PlayStation Home, and we hope our players love the new content coming soon in Novus Prime: Escalation on March 31. Thanks for stopping by to read about the expansion, and join our Facebook page for the chance to win some awesome giveaways!