It’s a dangerous world for indie developers hoping to make a splash with their new live service game. All games risk a failed launch, but the competitive multiplayer space has proven to be a no-man’s land for many promising titles over the past few years.
Still, Omega Strikers, which launches on all platforms this April, is still pouring in. With its mix of sports, fighting game-related action, and character-based teamwork, it’s heading straight for launch. I got a chance to play the game during the PC beta late last year, and that’s when I noticed how solid the Omega Strikers core is.
This week at GDC, I was able to join in again and chat with the trio of Odyssey Interactive Marketing Director Ryan Rigby, co-founder Richard Henkel, and co-founder Dax Andrus. The game has come a long way since last year, but I wanted to grill everyone on how Omega Strikers kept people playing for months after launch – something that has been explored by many of its peers as a pitfall.
their answer? Focus on the gameplay, not the “crap” mode you’ve seen elsewhere. In their view, that’s what modern audiences want. “Honestly, the most important thing is the authenticity of the developers,” Andrews said. “I’d say it’s something we’re very lucky and honored to be able to lean on. There’s no bullshit in Omega Strikers: the gameplay is what sells you.”
Another benefit of Omega Strikers, in their view, is cross-play across all platforms, which the team believes is critical to the game’s accessibility and overall appeal. “We’re trying to do cross-platform cross-process in an easy way,” Andrews elaborated. “Making everything seamless so you know what you’re getting into when you’re playing the game, and it never feels like we’re trying to, you know, go down the line ‘nickel-and-dime’ you first for other things.”
“With cross-platform, you can be wherever the player is. It’s like people don’t want to be told if I want to play that game they have to buy a console or they have to be on my phone,” Henkel added.
But there’s one more aspect of Odyssey Interactive that’s bullish on its desire to make its mark on this hyper-competitive space, and it’s something the team (made up of ex-League of Legends employees brought in from Riot Games) really values: characters. Likeable and appealing characters that players can really relate to.
“A big part of the fun of playing a character-based game is that you feel like you’re building a relationship with the characters in the game,” Andrews enthused. He pointed to Arcane, the popular League of Legends animated series, and how it made featured characters even more important to their playerbase.
“Our hope is that we can make an IP that will last for Omega Strikers and future games we make, and we’re taking the first steps into other mediums like anime and stuff. When we create a character, we Will keep this thought in mind; “If this character is the main character of their own anime, can they have a full season? “
With this kind of intense focus on the characters, it’s no surprise that the studio struggled with character updates post-launch. “Our goal is to release each new character for three weeks until we get to about 20 to 25 characters, and then we’re going to slow down to maybe half that rate or less,” Andrews explained.
Odyssey Interactive believes one of the weakest aspects of the Omega Strikers beta is the lack of characters, which has somewhat dampened the excitement for the roughly 1.5 million players who joined last year. However, at the pace outlined above, the developers hope to bring the game to a “pretty healthy” state at around 20 playable characters.
The team also released character-specific affinity levels for each playable hero, a sort of mini-battle pass that provides cosmetics and in-game currency (a-la Valorant, League of Legends, and many other games in this space). The trio also hinted at their desire to add an anime-style visual novel to the character in the future, using the narrative events of League of Legends’ “Spirit Blossom” as an example of the type of content they want to create, so players can get a better sense of their favorite fighter.
As for how Odyssey intends to prevent the “Hanzo problem” — a common situation where players who love their particular character will lock it up regardless of the needs of their team — it’s confident in its design, despite one caveat about target size.
“We’ve tried to design most of the characters, 80 percent of them, so that they can fill a variety of roles,” Andrews reveals. “It covers most situations. There’s also this upgrade system, which you can use throughout the game to enhance your character. It helps with flexibility.”
“Where it can be a challenge is the goalkeeper role,” he admits with a smirk. “Obviously, some roles are better at goalkeeping than others. But that’s what we want the players queuing up to be goalkeepers to not do. intentionally Pick a role that doesn’t fit that position. “
As launch approaches, morale is clearly high at Odyssey Interactive. But that naturally comes with a fear of how the game will be received, which Andrews sees as an “existential fear” shared by all indie developers. Buoyed by confidence in its work and feedback from beta testers and online fans, Omega Strikers could become one of the few online service games that can shoot and score where other games fail. We’ll just have to wait until kickoff to find out.
Omega Strikers launches April 27 on mobile, PC, and consoles.
