Hi everyone,

We have a few important clarifications to make—a somewhat serious business post. We’ve used some loose language regarding the game like PvP and Campaign, which has led to some minor confusion at times. So here are the official titles and explanations for the two game modes in Guns of Icarus Online.

Let’s take a look at what those are…

Skirmish—This is the competitive multiplayer airship combat portion of the game—the thing you’ve been seeing screenshots and trailers for, and what we’re focusing heavily on right now. Players will be able to play as Captain, Engineer, and Gunner on a variety of customizable ships. Customizations includes changing out engines, guns, and also minor cosmetic items like flags and decals—you’ll have a selection of hulls to work from. There will be a limited progression in the form of achievement-based unlocks for player equipment (skills), ships (still planning this), and ship components (also still thinking on this). Skirmishes like VIP, deathmatch, Capture Points, and etc… are all small, spontaneous, non-war type conflicts (similar to border disputes) that frequently take place in the greater game world, which links narratively to what we plan on doing with Adventure.

Adventure—This mode is the role-play based game that involves captaining your own airship through treacherous trade routes and faction politics, a deeper player and ship progression system, towns where you can dock to purchase supplies, take on crew, and accept missions, and an economic system to support trading and crafting. That’s all we can really say since we’re still designing and testing these systems.

Skirmish is what we’re going to be beta testing in the coming weeks (there are some hiccups with the Steam integration, hopefully we can [steam] iron those out soon). After the closed- and then open-beta testing of Skirmish we’ll be releasing Skirmish to the public for sale. We’re thinking about pricing it in the $10-15 range. Skirmish will be finished first and will be released when it’s done.

While we’re busy supporting Skirmish, we’ll also be working on expansions that introduce new Adventure features for future release. We’ll be doing as much as we can to test and preview the features to give everyone a taste of what we have in mind.

And that’s about it. Please let us know if you have any questions regarding any subject related to Gun of Icarus Online. We’re available on Facebook, Twitter, Email, and our Forums.

PS. We’re going to be announcing some big news while we’re at PAX East (and yup, we’ll be at PAX East!)! Keep a look out!