It looks light years away from the screenshots and I-Novae Studios has an long way to go before their pet project becomes a reality, but being able to see Infinity: Battlescape in action is a nice touch given the history.
The procedurally generated charms of Infinity have taken a very, very long time to come to fruition. That finally might no longer be the case though, with the Kickstarter for Infinity: Battlescape (a campaign that itself took a while to eventuate) inching closer towards its goal.
With 11 days to go and around US$60,000 left to raise (from US$300,000), the developers took their fabled engine and showed it off to all and sundry via the magic of a livestream. The HUD looks a little scant, although that’s not surprising given the early nature of the build.
But what’s interesting to me, particularly after watching the development of the Horizons expansion for Elite: Dangerous, is the smooth manner in which the game was able to transition through the atmosphere. The planets also look nicely detailed, and again this is keeping in consideration for the state of the project right now.
It starts out pretty simple but as the livestream goes on, the details of the planets, ships and the overall world starts to eek out. It’s certainly made me a lot more positive for Infinity: Battlescape as a project, although considering how much I’ve already invested into E:D and SC — as well as I-Novae’s history — I’m happy to sit on this until closer to release.
Comments
3 responses to “Infinity: Battlescape Shows Off Engine As Kickstarter Inches Towards Goal”
I absolutely love the look of this, I’m in 🙂
Here are some more in-game screenshots from the prototype
https://forums.inovaestudios.com/t/i-novae-engine-screenshot-thread/582/1856
Also, the stream linked in the article starts at aprox 5:35. Here is a direct link
Looks awesome, I have already backed for $20, hopefully will get a nice surprise when it’s released.
In for $250.
Knowing the details of I-Novae’s history makes me MORE confident in their ability to deliver!
The engine has been developed slowly but surely in spare time (mostly by one guy) and been rewritten to take advantage of modern hardware and graphics techniques. This has taken time but resulted in a very solid engine.
Hear about the history of the studio in this interview with developer Keith Newton: https://soundcloud.com/80-level/infinity-battlescape-interview-with-keith-newton-ceo
Note I say engine, not game. They haven’t been making a game all these years, they’ve been making a groundbreaking engine from scratch.
They’re not using Unity, Unreal or CryEngine and trying to shoehorn a solar system into an engine designed for first person shooter maps/levels.