Vigor Switch Closed Beta Recap & Founder´s Pack Release
The Closed Beta of Vigor on Nintendo Switch is over and I would like to thank everyone involved. Huge thanks for all your feedback from playing, interest in the new platform, and mainly for helping new Outlanders to enjoy the game. Our team is already going through all the data and working on improvements. Let's see what's in our plans now for the future of Vigor, and some details about how the Closed Beta went.
Post-war Norway in Numbers
We limited the Closed Beta audience with roughly 30 000 keys, and a bit more than half of the people asking for entry ended up played the game. Outlanders went into roughly five encounters on average and built over 52 000 improvements in their Shelter. Outlands were marked by over 40 000 kills – 12 000 of them were headshots. Some of the Outlanders even got squished by the Airdrop, yet that experience was mainly in the Tutorial map. And as Malcolm Forbes sais: "Failure is success if we learn from it." We were a bit surprised by the ratio of people using their Nintendo Switch in handheld mode, as that was a majority. And you mentioned that the handheld mode graphics could use some improvements – this is something we are going to focus on. One of the most often requested features was gyro aiming, which just missed out on making it into the Closed Beta. We are indeed preparing it for the release, as well as some improvements in the controls settings to make the gameplay more enjoyable.
Creative Outlanders
We were watching all possible channels during the Closed Beta, checking for feedback and possible improvements. There was a ton of great ideas and concerns, and we enjoyed the streams and videos of your gameplay. This is possibly the best source of information for developers, when they are able to see players in their "natural habitats" – how you react to various situations in the game. And there was a lot of content – thanks for that! Feel free to check it our for yourself...
What's Next?
I promised a peek into the future of Vigor on Nintendo Switch, so here it is. We are still going through all the data and feedback, and we know we would like to have a first public release This Summer. We decided we are going to use the same path we paved on Xbox – release a premium version of the game first to gather more feedback from a limited audience. If you would like to take part in the development of the Switch version of Vigor, you may do so during this period. Bohemia is well-known for listening to our community and working together on shaping our games. The premium version is going to contain a Founder's Pack similar to Xbox Founders, providing Outlanders with a hefty amount of Crowns and exclusive customizations that are not available anywhere else. We still plan to go fully free-to-play later in 2020, as soon as we feel we are in accord with our community on Switch. Take a look at what you can get in the Founder's Pack:
You Won't Miss a Thing
Some of the changes we would like to do for the Founder's Pack release of the game were already mentioned. Possibly the biggest change will be in the synchronization of the whole game with the Xbox version – the Closed Beta was roughly two months old and we added a ton of new content with many fixes. Some of you were surprised a teammate was able to kill and loot you. Even though you should always be prepared in the Outlands, we have already removed the possibility to loot a mate after a team kill. The Closed Beta allowed only solos and random duos matchmaking, but we are working on adding proper friends matchmaking on Switch as well. And even additional game modes – like Shootout, for example – are going to spice it up for all Outlanders.
Play Together
We are looking forward to seeing all Outlanders in post-war Norway, no matter the platform. If everything goes according to our plans, Nintendo Switch players are going to be able to play with Xbox Outlanders even at the start of the Founder's Pack period, making it easier to find Encounters and build your legacy. We are going to share more news later – stay in touch!
See you in post-war Norway
