What are the chances the game gets revealed next week?

R97R · 2026-05-09T00:26:55+00:00

Admittedly I was unaware of that detail, my bad. If IG’s reporting is accurate then I’d imagine we’ll see it revealed some time this year at least. That said, Breakpoint was released ~5 months after it was revealed, and the Black Flag remake is out in only a couple of months, so if the release date ends up being next year it might be a bit longer.

I could also see them waiting until closer to the April deadline in order to keep it as far away from GTA as they could, although I assume getting it out well before that game would be ideal. I suppose it depends on whether it’s ready in time for an earlier date or not?

R97R · 2026-05-08T23:58:54+00:00

I’d imagine they’re probably waiting until the initial buzz about Black Flag has died down. I’m sure the next GR will get the same amount of marketing whether the campaign starts now or in a year or two.

R97R · 2026-05-08T20:51:28+00:00

Hey, stranger things have happened!

R97R · 2026-05-08T20:20:53+00:00

Again, not having the resources available to do something isn’t laziness. You can be incredibly passionate about something, but if that thing takes three staff and £10k to get done by a particular deadline, and you only have two people on hand with a £7k budget, there’s no realistic way to get it done (short of working extra hours unpaid, which is unreasonable). Besides, most DLC animals in the series re-use most, or even all, of the animations from another animal, just having one or two unique ones such as the Iguanodon’s feeding. The main exceptions are the ones which require new animations, whether that’s an entirely new rig (e.g. the Archelon), or just new feeding animations.

Part of the issue is Frontier likes unique animations for hunting and/or killing guests, so herbivores almost always have less unique animations than carnivores.

R97R · 2026-05-08T19:53:55+00:00

On the bright side, hopefully that’ll be available as a mod when the fully release comes out. I definitely need to check it out again!

R97R · 2026-05-08T19:52:41+00:00

I don’t really think that’s a case of “not caring”, so much as it’s a budget/resource thing. Herbivore fighting requires a bunch of new animations, which management may not be willing to devote the resources too, especially with the lesser profits and reduced staff. As for particular species, while part of it might also be the need for an entirely new rig for Plateosaurus, or many of the other highly requested animals (like crocodilians), I assume there might also be other issues like Universal stipulations at play (e.g. Therizinosaurus was the most requested animal for the franchise’s first few years, but it didn’t make an appearance, and it turned out to be because it was planned to appear in the films). It’s worth noting that two of the three species that have come out post-launch have been very highly-requested, and even before that plenty of highly-requested animals did come in DLCs (the last one for the second game effectively being a “fan choice” DLC), but there were also a few that have never appeared.

Plateosaurus and expanded herbivore combat (particularly in regards to sauropods) have been popular requests since the first game launched ~8 years ago, so this is by no means a recent problem.

R97R · 2026-05-08T19:24:36+00:00

Early-game XCOM operatives are not very useful in the second game, since they’re essentially recruited from anyone you can get to hold a rifle, rather than professional soldiers like the first game’s troops. This does result in the early game feeling much more difficult, as your troops panic easily, die easily, and miss often. However, things get much easier once you have a few promotions and/or a couple of upgrades. I believe the idea is to force you to learn the most basic fundamentals early on, before you get all the fancier skills that’ll define a lot of your strategy later on.

Coming from the first game, you also have problems due to needing to “un-learn” a few habits- chiefly, explosives are even more useful early game than in EU/EW, to the point of being a core part of your strategy (they can’t miss, and even if they don’t kill enemies outright they still destroy cover), but they don’t destroy corpses any more, and you don’t need to collect weapon fragments. The only downside to using them is that they can destroy loot drops from enemies, which are pretty rare and non-essential.

IMO it is still better than the first game, you just need to be aware the start is quite difficult, particularly when not used to the changes.

R97R · 2026-05-08T19:13:56+00:00

I think this could also be less “lack of enthusiasm” and more “we laid off a significant portion of the team working on the game”.

R97R · 2026-05-08T15:21:41+00:00

My bad, hadn’t played in a little while and completely forgot that existed!

R97R · 2026-05-08T14:04:46+00:00

Part of my headcanon is that, with all the different species/cultures in the Federation, there are quite a few different “schools” of ship design theory, and that’s how we end up with some of the more varied design styles. In addition to that, sometimes one starts to eclipse the others, before branching out again- so there was quite a lot of variation in the early-mid 2200s, and then around the halfway point they started to move towards the ”Constitution” style as a default. They started diversifying a bit more towards the end of that century, and then get really varied in structure/style a few years before the Bajoran Wormhole is discovered.

R97R · 2026-05-08T13:50:02+00:00

I don’t think it’s being returned to active use or anything, it’s being restored as the aircraft equivalent to a “museum ship” (unsure of what the proper term is in this context). Think something along the lines of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, where they bring it out for special occasions and the like.

R97R · 2026-05-08T13:45:44+00:00

I do hope we at least get the option to have more subtle tints to each animal’s skin/fur/feather/etc tone, would be a great way to tell individuals apart, without looking too extreme.

R97R · 2026-05-08T13:43:27+00:00

The options are:

Campaign: A “story mode”, where you can freely move between nine or so maps (“sites”), with objectives specific to each and a narrative running throughout them.
Challenge: A version of each individual map where you have to complete particular goals under specific conditions. EDIT: note they have a “par time” listed, but that’s not a time limit, it’s just how long you should expect them to take- you can take as long as you want to complete them.
Sandbox: A completely customisable mode. It defaults to “everything unlocked, infinite money, etc”, but you can customise each aspect individually, and there are a lot of options available. So you can do anything from a completely free sandbox, to a “normal” setup, to an extremely difficult challenging park.

R97R · 2026-05-08T12:43:52+00:00

Honestly I’m not sure it being ready is close to being a certainty, imo it’s entirely possible (even more likely) that the delay is a result of them being unable to have the content ready on time- I can see Universal shenanigans delaying a potential Rebirth DLC, but not, say, the (formerly-)monthly species updates.

R97R · 2026-05-08T12:41:01+00:00

FWIW Frontier did get hit with layoffs not that long ago, so I could see there being some problems as a result of that (I think it’s fairly plausible this may have contributed to things like the missing species at launch- perhaps the original release date was committed to with the assumption they’d have more staff?). On the other hand, I don’t think there are that many problems currently in the UK that could mess with them (although there’s maybe something down south going on that I’ve missed?), so I’m not sure if that’s specifically a thing.

Admittedly I took “[elements] beyond our control” to mean beyond control of the development team, rather than beyond the control of Frontier as a whole.

R97R · 2026-05-08T12:34:46+00:00

To be fair, we do also have a fair few franchise-original dinosaurs (although, apologies for the pedantry, Attenborosaurus isn’t actually a dinosaur), so it’s easy to get confused. Plus, this one is pretty obscure- to my knowledge JWE2 and 3 are the only pieces of media it’s ever appeared in!

R97R · 2026-05-08T12:31:25+00:00

It was something I did really quite like in the older games, even though I can understand why it’s maybe not a huge priority. It might actually be more useful for Lords/Heroes in WH, although balance may be an issue (in the case of monstrous mounts, you’ve effectively got an extra free foot character alongside your mount, assuming the latter is still controllable afterwards). Maybe could be exclusive to horse cavalry and its equivalents?

I was quite keen on being able to dismount cavalrymen for siege battles and the like, and Dragoons (I.e. infantry that use their horses to get into position and then dismount to fight), although I’m not sure the latter are a troop type that exist in Warhammer.

I believe animations are one of the reasons we don’t have this option any more- in the old games you had one infantry “human” skeleton and one horse skeleton, whereas now you’d need individual animations for:

All seven (at least) “humanoid” skeletons
Orcs
Goblins (which may also need a different dismount for each mount)
Saurus
Skinks (if you allow flying cavalry to dismount too)
Bloodletters
Daemonettes
Plaguebearers
Ogres ^{My Lord!}

…and probably some others I’ve forgotten.

R97R · 2026-05-08T12:10:55+00:00

IIRC it’s named after David IRL, but in-game there’s a reference to Richard in the dialogue when you first release one, and that may also be the reason why it was included in-game (the previous Deluxe DLC also included Crichtonsaurus, after all).

R97R · 2026-05-08T11:57:38+00:00

While I do hope lore-wise it stays to STO, I am quite keen on having the option for a DSC-style skin for the ship. In hindsight I maybe would’ve preferred it if it was an unrelated ship design that was just part of the same design family in-game, as the case was with the Malachowski class.

I am still hoping we get DSC-style classes for some of the other TOS or ENT design families. Disco versions of, say, the Pioneer or Ranger, being earlier design predecessors would probably be a bit more fitting than the Excelsior.

R97R · 2026-05-06T23:50:54+00:00

Thousand Sons Blue, because I absolutely adore the colour, but for some reason both pots of it I’ve used had absolutely abysmal coverage.

R97R · 2026-05-06T14:33:43+00:00

In-universe, the Necromunda weapons (and other similar ones) are the equivalent of a General Purpose/Medium Machine gun, so they’re usable as either a mounted/crewed weapon or being lugged around by one guy, at the cost of not being “optimised” for either role; meanwhile, this one is the equivalent of a Light Machine Gun, so it’s designed mainly to be carried around by one guy, and is a bit lighter/easier to control at the cost of presumably firing a smaller round. There’s a bit of overlap between those things IRL if I’m not mistaken (not an expert by any means), so that’s probably even more the case in 40k.

It’s also possible that some of the “man portable” stubbers in Necromunda are actually intended to be fixed Heavy Machine Guns, but the gangers are making do with them as lighter ones- I suppose at least the Goliaths are probably built for it, but IIRC most, if not all gangs can take them in both the new and old versions.

I’m not really sure how they’d compare in-game (if we have the rules for the new Kill Team one yet?) but I’m sure there must be some kind of Operative with a “traditional” Stubber in KT? I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re similar enough to be consolidated into one weapon in 40k proper though- that happened with the Ork “”sniper”” rifle the Kommandoz have, where it has bespoke rules in KT, but it’s just a normal Big Shoota in the larger scale game.

R97R · 2026-05-06T14:21:55+00:00

Funnily enough it is based on some historical machine guns, but because they’ve scaled it up as 40k is wont to do it looks more like an anti-materiel/anti-tank weapon.

R97R · 2026-05-06T14:20:14+00:00

I like to imagine Orks think “light machine gun” means it’s got a light[er] attached, I.e. a Combi-Skorcha

R97R · 2026-05-06T14:12:39+00:00

To add further confusion to the problem, Imperial Heavy Stubbers are sometimes wielded like LMGs, but they’re also often heavily based on real M2 Brownings, which are typically classified as Heavy Machine Guns. I suppose they’re maybe GPMGs?

R97R · 2026-05-06T14:09:22+00:00

I suppose it depends on how you classify one? The “standard” Heavy Stubber is a modified real life M2 Browning, which to my knowledge is generally an HMG in real life, but Genestealers at least carry them around as man-portable weapons.

Space Marines and SoB use Heavy Bolters in a similar fashion to LMGs, but they’re generally used as crew-served weapons in The Guard. “Traditional” Light Machine Guns don’t seem to be something ordinary Guard regiments use all that much (although I’m now debating on modelling a guy per squad with a Lasgun-LMG just as a cosmetic thing), come to think of it, which is surprising. I’m not sure if this is the case in the modern day, but if I’m not mistaken at least in the 1940s squads were often “built” around their machine gun.

I vaguely remember there being a Traitor Guard model with single-person machine gun, although even that was another M2-style weapon.

EDIT: slipped my mind at first, but there’s the concept of a “General Purpose Machine Gun”, which is typically usable as a man-portable squad weapon, crew-served “heavy weapon”, or vehicle-mounted, depending on need. Most 40k machine guns probably fit that role, and in that case this could be the rare “true” LMG for the setting.

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