In the midst of development troubles, departures and hurdles for Motiga’s action MOBA Gigantic, things seemed rather stable once it went free to play. Players received a new update several weeks ago which also added a new hero. Unfortunately, the end is near and Gigantic’s servers will be shut down on July 31st.

The developer has announced that purchasing Hero Packs (which includes Start, Ultimate and Founder’s Packs) and Rubies is no longer possible. All current heroes will be made free and the cost for unlocking anything with in-game currency has been reduced. You can also purchase any Ruby-exclusive items with Crowns and use any currency in the Shop. Avenues for gaining Rubies and Crowns will remain available.

Those who purchase the Founder’s Pack will receive two colour variants for each of the exclusives skins which will not be available to purchase anywhere else.
“We are grateful for the support of our players and hope everyone continues to enjoy Gigantic until the game servers are discontinued on July 31, 2018,” said the developer.

With Epic Games’ Paragon also seeking imminent closure, it’s a huge bummer for MOBAs in general right now. We’ll be waiting to see what comes next from Motiga and wish them luck in the process.

After development troubles and several delays, Motiga’s action MOBA Gigantic is finally available to play on Xbox One, Windows 10 and Steam. It’s a free to play title but players can purchase an Ultimate Pack for $30 to access the 19 heroes currently available (plus future heroes as well).

Progression boosts, in-game currency and skins are also a part of the package. Furthermore, it seems that a new character will be releasing each month going forward.

Gigantic is a lot different from many other MOBAs in the market. It’s in third person and boasts a low-polygon visual style that’s slightly cartoonish. Two teams battle each other on one map and each possess a Guardian. This Guardian is capable of fighting for itself with its own abilities. Both teams must fight to assassinate the opposing Guardian.

If you’re keen to try out Gigantic, you can download it for free on PC via Steam right now.

While there are plenty of people anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Xbox One console exclusive Gigantic, there were some hiccups getting the game to market. Now those hiccups might be solved as Motiga has handed over publishing duties to Perfect World Entertainment. The announcement of the new publisher comes just a few months after Motiga announced it was in serious financial trouble, even having to lay off staff.

That could mean that there’s now an influx of cash so we might not have to wait long for it to hit the market. However, it’s not clear whether this partnership means those who were laid off will be brought back.

Gigantic was supposed to release last year and went through a number of betas.  The game, which is said to support cross-platform (meaning Xbox One and Windows 10) cooperative play is now back on track. Gigantic still doesn’t have a release date, but at least it will be released at some point.

Motiga’s Gigantic, the Xbox One and Windows 10 MOBA that was announced at E3 2015, is in trouble. The developer recently announced that it had to lay off a significant portion of its staff today for a temporary period due to its financial situation.

“It is with deep heartache that Motiga announces the temporary layoff of a significant percentage of our studio today. Our financial situation is such that we are unable to continue supporting the entirety of the studio at this time. Though we are in active and promising discussions with a number of potential investors, the timing for those negotiations extends beyond the resources we have to maintain the staffing required to continue development on Gigantic.”

If Motiga doesn’t attract significant investment, it may need to cancel Gigantic. At this point, even closed beta support is looking tricky.

“It is of course our goal, and our deep hope, that we are able to secure the necessary funding in the near future in order to bring Gigantic to market.

“We would like to thank everyone for their support over the last few months, and while the situation is far from ideal, the sheer number of people that have enjoyed playing Gigantic has affirmed what we’ve believed all along: while we still have a lot of work to do to polish the experience for the players, the current closed beta version of our game introduces a legitimately fun gameplay experience with great promise for the future.”

What are your thoughts on the situation with Motiga? Let us know in the comments.

Motiga’s upcoming MOBA Gigantic is receiving a sizeable new update to its beta which allows its participants 24 hour access (originally the beta was accessible at specific times) along with a host of other new features.

Cross-platform play between Xbox One and PC players has been added in along with servers in Europe. Motiga has also teased a new hero in a recent Facebook post. You’ll need a new redemption key since this beta client essentially replaces the old one. Check out all the changes here in the forums.

Gigantic was delayed from 2015 to 2016 for the sake of polish. Motiga announced some lay-offs to close 2015 but it’s still pushing ahead with development and promising more updates to the beta in the coming months.

What are your thoughts on the updates to the Gigantic beta? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks.

There aren’t a ton of details available about Gigantic a new MOBA shooter that is set for release at some point in 2016 and is being developed by Motiga studios but a few more pieces of information about the game have started to trickle out this week. We know the game is slated for a PC and Xbox One release and there is going to be a beta in the early part of 2016. Now we’re getting a little more information about the mechanics and the look of the game.

VP of Product Development James Phinney recently held an AMA on Reddit where he and other members of the development team made themselves available for some questions about the game. Among the information the developers were willing to divulge was that there might actually need to be some resolution compromises in order to get Gigantic to run at 60fps on the Xbox One. “We’ll see, but I would expect some resolution compromises for steady 60 fps, especially in the thick of combat.” Phinney said.

CEO Chris Chung took to the keyboard in order to tell people that at present, the company isn’t using DirectX 12 and instead Gigantic is being built using DirectX 11. Finally, the company talked about the fact that it has recently laid off a number of team members. Chung said that while the decision was quite painful the cuts that were made were done in a way so as to not hurt the development of Gigantic or delay its eventual release.

Motiga Studios’ Gigantic, an action MOBA for the Xbox One and PC, and talked about its expected plans for the new year. Though there have been lay-offs, it was revealed by the studio that this didn’t affect the development of the game.

“Undeterred, the team fights on and the work continues. As always, there are challenges. Some challenges require us to adapt. Some we master with ease. Some take blood, sweat, and tears.”

The developer also explained that the development team was “fully staffed and moving forward at full speed.” The 16 jobs cut were from the publishing side and didn’t affect development at present. There will be a new beta in early 2016 and it will work on both Windows 10 and Xbox One. You can play against friends on either platform through a single Xbox Live account. You can check out the changes the beta introduces here.

What are your thoughts on Gigantic releasing next year? Let us know in the comments.

Microsoft’s Kudo Tsunoda has never been one to mince words. This was the case when he was creative director for Kinect and as corporate VP, he’s since been hyping up HoloLens and Rare’s upcoming Sea of Thieves. In conversation with GamesRadar, Tsunoda talked about the challenges the Xbox One has overcome and how it will look to grow in the next six months to a year. Unsurprisingly, the console’s excellent Holiday line-up is a major contributing factor to that.

“You can see that what we’re focused on is just delivering high value for our gaming fans – and I think a big part of that is just listening to fan feedback, which we’ll always continue to do. I think it’s amazing, and this is just a job that you can see us doing in things evolving here at E3; the amount of big, blockbuster, exclusive titles that you can get this holiday on Xbox is just stunning. I mean, it’s really amazing – I think if you look at our competition there’s no way that people can really stack up with our exclusive content, and that’s an amazing part of what we’re doing at Xbox.

“And then stuff that I’m just super-excited about is the variety of content. Backward compatibility obviously is huge value for people, and we’ve got our blockbusters, but then you also see titles that really have a different look and feel to them – like Gigantic, a very different-looking game but super fun; ReCore; our awesome ID@Xbox games such as Cuphead. I think our exclusive content, the variety of gameplay that we’re able to provide people on Xbox, and then of course, the high value that comes with enabling things like backward compatibility and listening to our fans – I just think that’s where Xbox really shines.”

The PS4 still continues to dominate in terms of console sales worldwide but there’s no denying that there are some great games arriving for the Xbox One this year. What do you think of Tsunoda’s views? Let us know in the comments.

GamingBolt’s Leonid Meikhov spoke to creative director James Phinney during E3 2015 about the game, including its core mechanics, what separates it from other MOBAs and delivering the game for both consoles and PC while maintaining balance in cross-platform play.

"We want to make a game that has the depth for that, but it’s really not something you can force in terms of eSports. You can throw money at it or whatever, but really what matters is whether players are into it or not."

Leonid Meikhov: Why did you decide to go into the MOBA market first of all?

James Phinney: We didn’t. I mean, I think the game can be categorized as MOBA for sure. But, when we’re asked what term do you put it on it I think we settled on Shooter MOBA. MOBAs are actually just one of many different influences in the game. Influences for us really were much more, things like Team Fortress and other stuff we’ve worked on.

Really what we wanted to do was just to create an awesome competitive game and that meant drawing a lot from action game ideas. Ideas about fighting a console boss monster and shooter/class based kind of thing. But then also there are some really good ideas in MOBAs in terms of making a good competitive game.

Leonid Meikhov: I see. Are you guys targeting eSports or casual players?

James Phinney: You know, we want to make a game that has the depth for that, but it’s really not something you can force in terms of eSports. You can throw money at it or whatever, but really what matters is whether players are into it or not. For us, it is something we look at in terms kind of discipline of how we’re balancing the game and designing the game to make sure its going to have the depth for that. But really we’re looking at just making a fun game that that people are going to enjoy playing.

Leonid Meikhov: You’re kind of saying its more up to the community. If it becomes popular by the community for eSports then..sure why not?

James Phinney: Yeah. I’ve worked on a few competitive games before as Lead Designer on StarCraft and Guild Wars 1. And with StarCraft we set out to make an awesome game and that’s our mindset here. Let us just make something awesome.

Leonid Meikhov: How long has the game been in development for?

James Phinney: About 2 years..

"We’ve got different maps which really can significantly change up how the game plays. But the core of this game and the lot of the tricks we use from a design perspective to make sure we lead into more interesting, more competitive matches really centers around the Guardians."

Leonid Meikhov: And you came up with the idea? How did it happen?

James Phinney: When you get a team there are a lot of different influences and people’s ideas that come into it. We knew early on we wanted to do giant monsters and a competitive PvP experience. For me, drawing on things that I thought worked well in Guild Wars 1 PvP. I saw a way we could take what was there and structure it so it could be cool and then I always wanted to do a shooter and haven’t had the chance in my career to do that.

One of the things I’ve always thought that anything done in a fast paced dynamic way should have a good mix of shooter, melee combat and range combat and then also spell-casting. We’ve got characters in this game that shoot and fire projectiles that feel like shooter projectiles.

Often times when you have that kind of control scheme, when you bring out spell-casting it actually feels like re-skinned guns. You know what I mean? Oh, he shoots fireballs out of his wand and looks suspiciously like an assault rifle. For me, I always wanted to bring all of those things together and give it a try and early prototypes were really promising and we just have been rolling ever since. For us, we play-test the game internally every day and sort of follow the fun.

Imani is probably the most pure shooter character. So, she’s got this crazy cross-bow sniper thing and that’s how she plays. Talking keyboard and mouse controls: left click is going to shoot, that’s the only thing she does to attack. Right click is actually going to zoom in so, now you just got a scope and you’re trying to place precise shoots and just take people out that way.

When you cycle through 3rd Skills/Q Skill special ammo you can get this explosive ammo to launch people or set them on fire, frozen ammo slows them down. So we bring in a little bit of RPG skill design there, but not so much that she doesn’t retain the flavor of being a shooter kind of character. HK2O6 though, the robot that we saw in the there, another character that feels pretty shooter-like. He’s got like a Chaingun, Railgun, Mortar, he can shoot a lot of missiles. The big gimmick is that he has mechanical so he can sort of fortify, lock-down his turret going.

On the Brawler spectrum, you have characters like a Tyto the Swift. He is one of the characters that I think people tend to see in the images about the game. The red cape and sort of this owl mask.

Leonid Meikhov: Would you like to say he’s the mascot of this game?

James Phinney: (laughs) Yeah, certainly wouldn’t feel too bad about that. I think we want to look at the whole spectrum, but his is a pretty awesome design. He’s very fast, hits hard, but not that tough. Being smart about how you get in and out is a big part of his skill-set, but you know obviously doesn’t typically require the same kind of precise aiming.

"This core game-mode of fighting alongside your Guardian, using it to attack enemy guardian and take him out is our entire focus."

Leonid Meikhov: What about the big brawler guys that are tanky?

James Phinney: So, for tanky characters, there are 16 and there are 2 that are really that sort of fit the bill there. There is The Margrave which is purely that. He has this giant suit of black armor and a demon fist that has replaced his own. He is one of few characters in the game that has no range attack whatsoever, he got a couple of ways to close the distance. He has this ability to create this demonic shield that deflects projectiles and that will allow him to protect not just himself but also his allies. So, there is a character that’s very tough, has twice as many hit points as some of the other squishy characters, a lot of armor and can sort of control the battle by being the front-line for you.

On the other end of the spectrum there are characters like Uncle Sven. Very round jovial gentlemen whose flinging potions and you can build him just purely as a healer and really focus on kind of supporting you’re team. He’s got a really fun ability which is called Elastic Ooze, which you can throw, hit an enemy with it and send him bouncing away. You can also use it to give your allies super jump, there is a lot of verticality in the game to take advantage of the map layout.

You can also upgrade it to do things like: on the one hand – armor allies that go through it. On the other hand, you can use it so that the enemies get hit with the flame attacks, really light’em up. Build him more for offense if you’d like.

Leonid Meikhov: I see. Do you have anything more about your support people?

James Phinney: Yeah, so, I think Sven can play support role. But then there are also characters like Vadasi, she’s another healer character. She doesn’t have as many tricks for control play like Sven does with his Elastic Ooze. But, she’s got like the healing beam that she’ll shoot out of her forehead.

The tough thing with her, she’s one of the characters that we think is based on an RPG design. She’s got more complex skill in her action. The basic being, all of her skills are powered up by creating these orbs which she has to sacrifice her own life to get them. So, for her to be in a state where she’s doing her best healing, she’s actually sacrificing her own health at a pretty good rate.

Leonid Meikhov: The game modes?

James Phinney: It is what it is. We’ve got different maps which really can significantly change up how the game plays. But, the core of this game and a lot of the tricks we use from a design perspective to make sure we lead into more interesting, more competitive matches really centers around the Guardians. The ways that you work to get them powered, the ways that they work to defend you and the kind of map control that you get from the creatures and the choices you make with those. So, this core game-mode of fighting alongside your Guardian, using it to attack enemy guardian and take him out is our entire focus.

"The truth is, when you look at the things that let you transition from closed beta to open beta it’s not about whether you got XYZ done, it’s about is the game good enough, do people like it enough?"

Leonid Meikhov: How are you dealing Cross-play for Xbox and Windows 10, with the PC having mouse and keyboard and the controller sensitivity and aiming… how are you dealing with that?

James Phinney: We have no illusions about that being balanced, I don’t think that it is. There are actually some characters like Margrave (the big tough guy) his play style is sort of slow enough so that it’s not that much of a disadvantage. Some of the guys at the office actually will play Controller vs Keyboard/Mouse. I think in general, it’s a different experience and so our current plan is for that to be opt-in experience. So, people who want to play in an environment with a controller they can. If you want to play in environment where it’s just keyboard/mouse or just controller you can do that.

Leonid Meikhov: Are you guys targeting 1080p/60 fps on the Xbox One?

James Phinney: We’re in alpha right now, we’re seeing what we can do. Obviously, we want it to play as well as possible and look as good as possible.

Leonid Meikhov: Most competitive games, they need that 60fps feel.

James Phinney: Yeah, certainly. We think that 60fps is very important.

Leonid Meikhov: When is the target release date? Sometime this year, next year?

James Phinney: We’re going to go into closed beta in August and then we would love too see it going into open beta. We’d love too see it during Holidays later this year. The truth is, when you look at the things that let you transition from closed beta to open beta, it’s not about whether you got XYZ done, it’s about is the game good enough, do people like it enough? I can’t put a firm schedule on open beta, but I can say closed beta in August and then we’ll see where it goes.

Leonid Meikhov: So early 2016 release?

James Phinney: It’s quite possible.

Microsoft’s Windows 10 platform and ID@Xbox indie developer program had a fairly good presence during the company’s E3 2015 media briefing. We got a look at several indie titles which will be heading to Xbox One and PC later this year, some which come from familiar names.

There’s Tacoma, which comes from Gone Home developer Fullbright; Gigantic, an action team-based game which relies on summoning giant guardians to fight alongside you; the charming platformer Cuphead which hasn’t diminished at all in its appeal; and much more, as revealed in the recent montage for the same. There were also efforts like Ashen and Beyond Eyes which, though relatively short in their reveals, still look interesting enough. Too bad Capybara’s Below still wasn’t dated.

What are your thoughts on Microsoft’s ID@Xbox showcase and the number of titles heading to Windows 10? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and stay tuned for more information.