Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport Designer Diary #3 - Weapons and Armor

It's not enough to have first-person shooters that simply place you in a corridor with a first-person view, give you a weapon or two, and then have you start blasting anything that moves. Years of innovation and new ideas, including competitive, head-to-head play have helped first-person shooters advance from their earliest stages to become the games they are today. Competition will be at the heart of Kylotonn's upcoming shooter Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport, a game that will pit you against other hardened soldiers in a futuristic competition for cash. You'll even be able to arrange tournaments within tournaments in the game's competitive multiplayer modes. However, a shooter wouldn't be a shooter without a bunch of powerful weapons and items to help you on your way. Kylotonn's Roman Vincent explains.

Bet on Bullets

Roman Vincent
CEO and Producer, Kylotonn

In this installment of our designer diaries, we are going to focus on two of the most important elements of Bet on Soldier gameplay: the weapons you can use in the game, and the armor system. You won't be able to survive without either, and as you know, you're going to need a lot of money to be able to afford both.

Let's start by talking about the firepower at your disposal. In Bet on Soldier, you'll be able to select from 13 basic weapons at the start of the game. All of these weapons can be upgraded with scopes, lasers, and other options, with a secondary fire option also available for each of them. By the end of the game you'll have more than 40 weapons to choose from, depending on how much money you've managed to accrue over the course of the game. And of course your original weaponry will have been upgraded to much more powerful models.

However, the enemies also have a large selection of weaponry. The BOS champions you'll encounter from level to level often will have modified, specialized weapons. For example, one of these champions uses a submachine gun (SMG), which fires explosive bullets, inflicting massive damage with every hit.

For the most part, we have wanted to give Bet on Soldier a realistic feel, but this world does allow us to look at some futuristic (but not quite sci-fi) twists and turns. The weapons you'll use reflect this idea. There are, of course, classic weapons such as pistols, SMGs, shotguns, rocket launchers, assault rifles, sniper rifles, explosive grenades, heavy machine guns, and so on, but you'll also find some uncommon weapons like the "war shotgun," which has five barrels and fires explosives bullets. There's also a wide variety of grenades available, such as acid grenades, which will corrode your enemy's armor; hallucinogenic grenades, which will disorient enemies; incendiary grenades, which will wound enemies regardless of armor; and cluster grenades, which release six smaller grenades when they explode, making them very useful for eliminating groups.

We also have a flamethrower in the game, and you'll be able to use the incendiary, acid, and hallucinogenic grenades as ammo. That means you'll have an acid launcher and a flame launcher all in one weapon!

Now that you know a little more about the weapons you can use, let's go over the protection system, which is one of the most important and unique features in Bet on Soldier. During the game you can't regain health during a mission but you can repair your armor using the reload terminals, which are situated throughout the levels. Repairing the armor is what keeps you alive, because without it, you're completely naked and totally vulnerable.

There are three different types of armor types in BOS: light, heavy, and the exoskeleton. The light armor is the minimum that a soldier requires to protect his body. Heavy armor covers more body parts and is much more resistant. The exoskeleton covers your entire body and protects you for a much longer duration. Of course those exoskeletons aren't exactly the lightest things in the world, so you'll be much slower when wearing them.

Each soldier's armor is divided into three main segments: head, body, and legs. The damage you inflict can be seen in real time on each part, and enemies lose the damaged parts as you fire at them. We felt this was an incredibly important factor when developing the game, as players should actually be able to see the damage they're inflicting on their foes. This means that during gunfights, you know what state your enemy is in and just when to go for the kill, or conversely when to run for cover or the nearest terminal.

We also have a shield system in the game, which adds another layer of protection for players. The shields can be used with one-handed weapons like pistols and SMGs, but they are also fully destructible.

Everyone here at Kylotonn is officially in crunch mode now as we're getting the game ready for our September release. We'll be back next month to talk about this crazy time as we get closer to getting Bet on Soldier out the door.