After my extensive 1 on1 time with Mike Legg at E3, I’ve been following End of Nations news pretty closely and got involved in the various betas. At PAX Prime I got the opportunity to speak with Chris Lena. With him, I got to see the ‘Elite Companies’ aspect of the game as well as talk about some of the goals for the future.
Elite Companies are companies that can be purchased with everything attached that you need. So instead of completely customizing your own company from the ground up, you can purchase one of these premade ones. I made the mistake of thinking these were sort of ‘beginner companies’ since they are prebuilt, but that’s not the case at all. There are more situational than simple. The “Blitz” company is a perfect example, their job is to get in there, and do a lot of damage. When a situation arises that needs this sort of attention then you can recall your custom group and bring in the Blitz.
After talking with Chris Lena, I could tell that he’s really excited about the ‘Free to Play’ model. The team seems to be enjoying the freedom of not having a hard deadlines or a need to print a release date on a box. In this model, they can continue to tweak and play test the game to have it be exactly how they want it before the official launch. Through beta testing, they can get community feedback and stress tests. It comes down to them really having freedom to do what they want.
When I asked about eSports he told me it is something they would definitely be interested in getting into. He said that the team takes eSports very seriously. The idea of having professional gamers play in a 12 on 12 style map has so much potential for great matches and action.
Currently, End of Nations is still in closed beta. The next beta weekend has been announced to be for this upcoming weekend. There is no release date as of yet but most likely it will be out before the end of the year.
