Scavengers Patch Addresses Progression Pace, AMA Covers That And Future Plans

As to be expected for a game in early access, Scavengers has had its ups and downs. Midwinter Entertainment has tried to address that with hotfixes and patches -- including one that's going live today -- but there's clearly more work to be done.

To that end, CEO and Creative Director Josh Holmes and Head of Production Mary Olson hosted an AMA on Reddit yesterday, responding to what fans thought were the game's most pressing issues.

"Chips are a virtual currency that can be earned by playing the game, and will one day be available to purchase with real money," said Holmes, which verifies Magicman's belief in the First Look. Holmes understood that there's "concern around having a progression system where you can skip some research time with currency," but said that if it "ever feels like it's drifting into pay-to-win ... we promise we'll adjust."

Crafting, and the pace of the game and Scrap collection are a collective topic that still needs significant adjusting. Today's patch changes the rate of Scrap accumulation, as well as making it so that defeated players no longer drop their weapons, so as to make crafting more attractive. In the AMA, Holmes said that the "want research to play a role, but not be the 'absolute' path to power."

You'll also now receive Salvage even if you fail to extract from the planet, which should make endgame battles around the dropship a little less frantic and high-stakes. In general, the goal is to make the game more attractive to players wishing to specialize in PvE. "We will continually be looking at ways for non pvp players to be successful," said Olson, who said she was "a PVE player myself."

New game modes will be added over time, with Olson mentioned "Gun Fu" as something that will be coming soon: "you'll spawn with 2 random weapons at the start of the match."

Finally, if you're wondering about some of the lore of the game ... keep wondering. One player asked why "Mother" wanted the explorers to fight each other instead of "getting all the data and having the most amount of explorers return home for future research endeavours."

Olson's response: "Mother has her reasons. And she believes in a little healthy competition to get the most data returned to her (and find out who she can count on in the future). Don't worry child, explorers can be cloned." Gee, thanks Mom.