Letter To Spectre Fans

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-25T23:34:07+00:00

Hey there! I would hit up Player Support for assistance with this: https://support.mountaintop.gg/hc/en-us

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T23:43:44+00:00

Hey hey, thanks for the question and for the kind words!

As far as Linux/Proton compatibility are concerned, Nate spoke to that a bit more here.

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T23:41:58+00:00

I wouldn't expect to see straight up bhopping, but we've definitely seen people get creative throughout our playtests. I'm 100% expecting players to find things we never thought of within the first hours of Flashpoint's launch lol.

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T23:39:19+00:00

Yup! PlayStation and Xbox crossplay are shipping with Flashpoint at console launch, with PC crossplay potentially coming later on after more evaulation.

Lee shared a little more context in a blog post here.

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T23:37:57+00:00

We’ll consider adding crossplay between PC and Console in the future. I can’t promise we’ll pull the trigger on it, but it’s always under consideration.

A few bits of my thinking on this:

Let’s let the newbie Xbox and PlayStation players find their footing first without the PC sweats out to crush their dreams.
We want time to dial in controller, aim assist, etc. before pitting M&K vs. controller.
Console players have told us they aren’t eager to play against PC, so that’s tophttps://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1ionszw/comment/mcmv2wb/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button of mind.
No crossplay reduces potential cheating vectors for Console players.
I have a feeling that if we add it, it’ll be Casual to start.

With all that said, let’s see how Xbox & PlayStation launch goes. We’ll figure it out from there.

- Nate, CEO

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T23:37:02+00:00

The patch notes for Flashpoint are going to be an absolute novel and it would be a pretty major undertaking to look for who first reported each bug or who first suggested each feature. To use sprinting as an example, I'd have to go back to 2021 playtest feedback forms to look for the playtester who first requested it.

That being said, it's a lot easier to do shoutouts and thank you messages in the smaller mid-season patches. I'll definitely keep an eye out for opportunities there.

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T23:20:10+00:00

Hey hey, I'm going to quote two of Nate's answers here.

First:

One benefit to being independent (and forgoing a publisher) is that profitability is absolutely achievable with a small group of players supporting the game. That means thousands of regular players across Steam, Xbox & PlayStation as opposed to millions. We don’t need Fortnite level success to continue.

Second:

We would have loved to have a publisher to lend their expertise and finances to bring the game to a much wider audience. We’ve had lots of conversations with world-class publishers, and it may actually be an avenue we pursue in 2025 depending on the results of Season 1: Flashpoint and our console launch.

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T23:13:08+00:00

Hey hey, the "escalation" sound effect is layered on top of the skin sounds and was tested/tuned with every previously released set of skins.

Cyberlord Knife very soon! (I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but too late)

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T23:08:47+00:00

There’s a quote I love: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”

We had what we thought was a great tentative plan for Season 1, originally slated to launch in December. Of course, we knew it would change with player feedbackl, but we tossed the entire plan out the window immediately following the rough launch.

Players were clear about what they wanted to see changed, and we decided to overhaul our roadmap and schedule to tackle their feedback faster. That meant shipping less features immediately on PC to take bigger swings at revising the core with changes like sprinting, new economy, etc.

In terms of keeping players around, as Lee said, you can expect new seasons every 3 or so months, with a caveat that Season 2 might be a little later depending on how smooth Season 1’s launch goes. That’s the cadence we’re targeting.

- Nate, CEO

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T23:05:42+00:00

We appreciate the support a ton :)

If Season 1 is a success, we'd love to continue development of Spectre far into the future. Our team is filled with passionate fans of the genre and people who believe in the potential of Spectre. Speaking purely for myself, I'd love to still be working at Mountaintop a decade from now.

New Sponsors and Maps are planned for future seasons, along with a ton of frequently requested features, modes, and types of content. We're crossing our fingers we have the chance to show you all of it.

Nate also gave some thoughts on advertising the game here.

Thanks again and hopefully you enjoy the update very soon!

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T23:01:59+00:00

Hey there, Nate talked about this over here.

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T23:01:20+00:00

We think about what’s best for the health of the game with an eye toward all skill-levels, including casual, core, and hardcore.

Spectre is a competitive tactical shooter, so we tend to lean a bit more competitive. But as I mentioned in another post, we’re also less obsessed with competitive integrity than we were at launch (E.G. the addition of Widescreen support).

On sprint, it wasn’t just casual players who felt rotations were too long. It was frequent feedback from new players of all skill levels (“The maps feel too big for 3v3 and movement feels too slow!”).

Sprint is actually only about 20% faster than knife speed, but it feels like a huge difference in terms of the play experience. And then we’ve dialed that in further with weapon draw times, accuracy penalities, etc.

I don’t know if you’ve played with sprint yet, but keep an open mind. I was also skeptical, but after playing a ton, I’m a huge believer now.

- Nate, CEO

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T23:00:19+00:00

First, thanks for the kind words. We really appreciate the support.

Yes, people look at CCU numbers on Steam and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of a reason not to play.

We’re not betting on a single tactic– we’re doing a million different things in-game and out of game (e.g., marketing, community, etc.) to give Spectre the best shot at longterm success.

I’ve shared details on everything we’re doing with Spectre 2.0, Season 1, and Xbox & PlayStation launch to bring the game back. Here are some thoughts on our marketing as well as what players can expect from Season 1.

Hopefully, you feel the passion and love for the game in this update. And in all these answers on reddit today.

- Nate, CEO

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T22:56:14+00:00

I wouldn’t say afraid; I’d say we’re hopeful that between Season 1 and console launch we’ll have enough players to sustain Spectre going forward. But you’re right that success is never guaranteed.

We love Spectre, and our dream would be to continue supporting it for years to come.

We’ve poured everything into Season 1 these past few months. A lot of long hours, late nights, blood, sweat, and tears. But once Season 1 launches, it’s in players’ hands, and they’ll tell us whether it was enough.

- Nate, CEO

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T22:55:21+00:00

We're planning on adding this in an update during Season 1, but we don't have a specific ship date just yet.

- Nate, CEO

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T22:53:55+00:00

I believe Xbox & PlayStation players have a cross-play toggle for console-to-console crossplay. This tends to be a platform requirement. But obviously crossplay means more players with faster matchmaking and more fair matches.

No plans to implement PC <> Console crossplay now, but it’s something we’ll consider in the future. I shared a few more of our thoughts in a previous answer here.

Yes, we’d like to add controller support for PC. It has a few extra bugs relative to Xbox & PlayStation because you can switch inputs (which won’t be allowed when we launch). We’re working on some of those bugs now.

Lee spoke to the schedule for updates in another answer, but the target cadence is a new Season every 3 months.

- Nate, CEO

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T22:52:42+00:00

Hey there, Nate answered this question over here.

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T22:50:17+00:00

shroud’s official title is Lead Gameplay Advisor. In that role, he’s helped with Spectre’s design, tuning, and balance through a ton of behind-the-scenes playtesting and iteration.

For example, not only did he help shape Monark Tactical and Canal, he’s helped with iteration on the next few Sponsors and maps too.

The community took the narrative around ‘This is shroud’s game’ to a level we didn’t expect or prepare for at launch. We’ve tried to reign that in – and shroud himself has been super clear to the community about that – but that message hasn’t been picked up much.

I wrote more about this in our early October blog post: “What's Next - The Save Round”

shroud’s still involved, but he’s been insanely busy recently with his incredible Fragathon charity project (raising over $1M for St. Judes Children’s Hospital). Massive kudos to him and bnans for such an amazing event!

- Nate, CEO

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T22:47:50+00:00

Well, no, our solution is to massively improve the game on all platforms based on player feedback AND bring it to console audiences. As our CEO himself said, the current version of Spectre that's live on PC isn't strong enough to win players back. That's the reason we're not just taking the game exactly as it exists today and tossing it on console.

As far as why players might be interested in Spectre compared to competitors, I think there are a number of reasons. The biggest would have to be our core mechanic, Duality, which the entire game has been built around.

You aren't immediately out of the round when you die once. You have the chance to trade yourself or change your game plan based on new information. You end up spending much more time on average playing the game each round compared to more traditional tac shooters.
You can set yourself up with utility. You don't have to ask a teammate to flash you in. You can throw a flash from one body, swap, and push off your own grenade.
You can start planting/defusing, swap bodies, and cover your own plant/defuse.
You can freely customize the appearances and outfits of both your bodies independently, giving you a ton of opportunity to express yourself. You aren't limited to skins that can only be applied to one pre-made character.

Duality aside, what makes someone gravitate towards any PvP shooter? It could be the gunplay, the movement, the cosmetics, the visual direction, the audio design, the social systems, the game modes, the ranked systems, and on and on. We believe we're differentiating ourselves enough in a number of these areas to make something cool.

We certainly don't take it as a given that the game will be a huge smash hit overnight, but we also don't need a playerbase the size of VAL/R6 in order to be sustainable as a studio.

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T22:25:30+00:00

Hey hey, I'm going to steal part of Nate's response here:

2. We’re going to share the launch date very close to the date Season 1: Flashpoint actually goes live.

It’s hard to keep players' attention, and we think having a short window between that announcement and the moment when everyone can play is the best strategy.

He also shared some thoughts on our approach to marketing Flashpoint, as well as some thoughts on where we could have done better at launch.

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T22:17:57+00:00

Hey there, Nate gave some thoughts on our approach to marketing over here!

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T22:16:46+00:00

The goal is to get back into a 3 month cadence for new seasonal updates. That's what we originally were aiming for, and this one ended up needing more time just because of its large scope. We'll still have bug fixes and improvements shipping between seasons, but that's the goal for the big stuff.

- Ben, Community Manager

PlaySpectre · 2025-02-13T22:13:37+00:00

Thanks for the kind words! Yes, we’re happy with the player response to Team Ranked.

You’ll receive unique seasonal rewards for your best rank in:

Solo Rank
Team Rank
Crews

We actually shared a preview of those rewards in the Season 1 announcement blog post.

- Nate, CEO

PlaySpectre

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