Penny Arcade Expo East 2015

By Atlas on March 9, 2015 in Daily News

From San Francisco to Boston, the past week in gaming has celebrated two popular expos: the Game Developers Conference and the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) East. PAX was founded by the guys over at Penny Arcade in 2004 who wanted to host a show exclusively for gaming. After the massive successes of the original, Seattle based shows, the expo expanded to include an outing in Boston called PAX East. Like any self-respecting gaming convention, PAX East is always packed full of booths, demos, gaming competitions, and even cosplay contests. The expo hall even hosts a special AFK room for those who wish to get away from all the sensory overload, or if you’re seeking sensory overload you can head into the Steel Battalion room and take place in some mech-on-mech combat.

However, of particular interest to us this year were a couple announcements regarding Star Citizen as well as the Battlefield series.

Star Citizen

As was promised in the Roberts Space Industries February Monthly Report, the release of Star Citizen’s FPS module is (hopefully) right around the corner. Since the last announcements of the FPS module, it’s been reported that the HUD and animations have been overhauled or, in some cases, completely redone.

The fellas over at RSI also showed off their impressive new damage modeling for you to ogle. The devs wanted users “to be able to differentiate [damage types] just from looking at your ship.” To do this they scrutinized specific locational damage and damage types (e.g. projectile / energy), and then proceeded to fix up the decals and animations to show off just what their damage modelling can do. For a deeper look at the changes, which truly are amazing, check out this RSI transmission.

The multi-crew Aegis Retaliator also received some attention and was re-introduced in typical Star Citizen fashion.

Battlefield

Battlefield 4 fans will be happy to hear that DICE has converted two more BF4 maps to nighttime mode. Both Golmund Railway and Zavod 311 are on the consumer test environment, being prepared for their final release. YouTuber Westie uploaded a video showing off the maps which also reveals a mysterious Yeti who seems to be haunting Golmund Railway.

Along with the new BF4 maps, lucky PAX East attendees were able to sit down and play Rescue mode from Battlefield Hardline, Visceral Games’ new entry to the BF series. A new launch trailer was also revealed which you can check out here (definitely NSFW – Language/Violence). Hardline is just over a week away from launching this March 17^th.

Were you able to attend PAX East 2015 this year? If so, share your stories!