Midnight Star: Renegade is Out!
Posted on August 11, 2016 Posted by John Scalzi 10 Comments
Hey! I’m tremendously excited to announce that Midnight Star: Renegade, the mobile first person shooter that I’ve been working on with Industrial Toys, is now out and ready for you to play on iOS devices. It’s the sequel to last year’s Midnight Star game and features many of the same bad guys, kicked up with new gameplay and and a fast-paced setup that lets you get in, blast the crap out of some aliens, and get back out again. It’s the perfect shooter to play out in the world.
Let me quote the press release here:
Renegade is the culmination of decades of shooter development, completely re-imagined from the ground up for mobile. The game features a control system built around native touch, tap and swipe inputs to allow gamers to run, dodge, chase, fly, shoot, blast and destroy like a boss. The game has 150 campaign levels, daily and weekly multiplayer events and enough gear to build 1000s of customized rifles, pistols and grenades.
Renegade is a fast-paced, arena-style shooter combined with a deep RPG. Players build their characters from humble recruits to elite Renegade operatives. Weapon crafting allows players to construct everything from Auto Fire Electro-Shock rifles to dual-wielding Pure-Ice Rocket Pistols. Combined with custom skinning, players make characters that are truly their own. Renegade raises the bar for gameplay and graphics by leveraging the latest mobile GPUs and Unreal Engine 4 to achieve state of the art effects such as HDR lighting, full screen render effects and real-time shadows.
Set 130 years into our future, Renegade sets players on an adventure to unravel the secrets of an alien civilization that disappeared 22,000 years ago. When we discover we are not alone in our search, an epic war erupts for the future of the galaxy.
Yeah, you know you want to play it. There’s already a community built around the game, with challenges and events and people to set yourself against. It’s the most fun you’ll have with your phone.
Here’s the cool thing: As with Midnight Star last year, Renegade is free to download and start playing.
(Android folks? I’ve played the beta. Don’t worry, we’re on it.)
Naturally I’ve been playing builds of Renegade as it’s been coming along, and while I’m biased — I did help create the world of Midnight Star and Renegade — as a fan of first-person shooters, I kinda love this one. It nails what I love about first person shooters (mainly, cathartically blasting away at evil aliens), while building the controls out intelligently for mobile, and improving on the control scheme from Midnight Star, to give players even more control and mobility. Plus it’s fun to build the perfect weapons to blast the aliens to bits. It’s big fun in an easy-to-take-with-you package.
Try it out. I think you’ll have as much fun with it as I’m having. Maybe more. You’re probably a better shot than I am. Seriously, I need to play more.
Is the original one out on Android?
Inquiring minds (at least one inquiring mind, anyway) want to know: does the new game give any insight into what actually happened to Charlie Campbell and friends?
There is one insuperable problem; I’m really, really bad at shooter games, which means that I’m never going to be able to find out all of the wonderful story which lies within it.
What I need is an option where the game provides me with a squad of heavily armed escorts whose function is to get me safely through all the levels whilst I have maximum fun discovering the story…
YouTube playthroughs.
I really enjoyed Midnight Star and, like Bruce K up there, I’d really like to know what happens next. If that is covered by Renegade, great. If not, I will be blasting aliens because it’s dang fun.
You’re working on the Android version? Okay. Pacified for now.
FOR NOW.
I’ve been playing the betas all the way through and to be honest I think they lost a lot of the magic of the first game.
The gameplay evolved but the story and character are much reduced. After a while it just ended up being a huge grind through the same 4-5 maps. The first game was ‘on rails’ but I think that made it better somehow.
Definitely worth trying, but I hope they’ll focus on the story more in the next project.
John, I didn’t know such a thing exists. I will be delighted to find there’s somebody actually doing it. Thank You !
I tried to be a beta tester (TestFlight) but every time I installed it, after five minutes of trying to play it, it came back off. For me the UI is horrible. I wish the game the best as well as all the developers behind it.
Well, I downloaded it yesterday and tried it this morning and I’m cautiously optimistic. It’s a pretty good system for a touchscreen shooter; the graphics are nice and I like the customization system, which seems much more intuitive with less artificial currencies and clicking between a dozen screens to level up or change equipment. All of the previous systems felt like roadblocks to me, not so much here.
I’ll try the campaign later today.