Chief among the expansion’s additions are the new mutators. For every single quality-of-life improvement, like the new wandering merchant and mid-level save system, there are two extra features. Strafe: Millennium Edition manages to find a balance between the roguelike shooter roots that set the base game apart and a new hybrid experience. “We always planned to do something like this,” he said about Millennium Edition, citing the studio’s plan for at least a year-long support of constant major updates, tweaks, and other changes to Strafe. Pixel Titans took community feedback to heart when working on the update, but according to Glunt, the origins of it were a top-down decision. Looking at the list of changes and new additions to Strafe: Millennium Edition, it’d be easy to assume that the expansion was reactive.
#STEAM STRAFE UPDATE#
Both Glunt and Pixel Titans co-founder Stephen Raney think the update will drastically improve the Strafe experience for players new and old. Be it would-be players approaching the game with misguided expectations (Pixel Titans describe Strafe as a “roguelike first-person shooter” at the top of the game’s description on Steam), or something else Strafe seemed to puzzle and frustrate owners more than keep them glued to the screen.Īnd that’s where Strafe‘s “Millennium Edition” comes in. There’s a certain allure to its design, but many found the retrowave shooter to be too much to stomach. It’s not uncommon to die multiple times on the first level, surrounded by dozens of deceptively deadly enemies in mere seconds. Strafe is the kind of game that either clicks with a player immediately or pushes them away after a few deaths. According to Glunt, Strafe‘s design - both as a hard-as-nails shooter and a surprisingly deep roguelike - was born of an earnest desire to fill what Pixel Titans saw as a gap in the gaming market. But it isn’t challenging for challenge’s sake.
#STEAM STRAFE FULL#
It’s punishingly difficult the kind of game that demands your full attention. That sense of determination informs the entire Strafe experience.
“We wanted to play this game so bad,” developer Thom Glunt said about Strafe‘s core concept, “we started a studio just to make it.” Strafe‘s blend of frenetic first-person gameplay and roguelike design might seem common half-a-year after its release, but at the time it was at the forefront of a modern niche subgenre. In Strafe, you never know what’s coming next. Biting the bullet - or pipe, rocket, or any number of things that can kill you - meant buckling to randomized level layouts. Instead, Strafe made players start all over again. Unlike most shooters, running out of life didn’t just mean that you had to replay the level. Dying was an integral part of the experience. It was fast and violent, not unlike Quake, with relentless enemies hell-bent on stopping players dead in their tracks. The first-person shooter looked like a game from a bygone era. When it released in May 2017, Strafe was something of an anomaly. Talking tweaks and updates with Strafe: Millennium Edition developer Pixel Titans
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