Miner Wars 2081’ Patch Optimizes Performance, Adds Offline Single-Player

‘Miner Wars 2081’ Patch Optimizes Performance, Adds Offline Single-Player
Miner Wars 2081 arrived on Steam towards the end of last year, and was one of the most ambitious indie games of 2012.

arrived on Steam towards the end of last year, and was one of the most ambitious indie games of 2012. It offers a fully destructible and open-world environment, which is persistent through single-player and online modes. It also boasts 31 campaign missions and a whole host of online multiplayer modes for up to 16 players. Games as large as this tend to differ from others, in the fact they require more long-term support from the developers — the continued development of the game is more of an ongoing process. True to form, the developers of Keen Software have just released a new patch, two months after the game’s release, to fix bugs and add content.

Miner Wars 2081 received a mixed responsefrom gamers upon its release. One of the criticisms often leveled at Keen Software was that their inclusion of Diablo 3 -esque always-on DRM was unnecessarily restrictive to the single-player gamer. It seems that they have taken these concerns on board, as this latest update adds full access to the game’s single player modes without the need for a constant internet connection. Gamers are notoriously opposed to heavy-handed digital rights management, so  this update will no doubt help to improve developer-community relations.

As well as removing restrictions and bug-fixing, the new patch also adds some new content. The first of these additions is the introduction of cheats. The cheats offered sound like fairly standard fare —infinite ammo, immortality, level skip etc. —and are a nice touch, although not terribly exciting. I just hope that they’re activated by code entry, for full nostalgic charm. More interestingly, the update also adds a ‘2.5D Experiment’, which includes brand new 2.5D Deathmatch modes. The game is viewed from a top-down perspective in 2.5D mode, making it looks very different, almost like a traditional shoot-’em-up. You can see a screenshot of this, below.

Do you own Miner Wars 2081 , and if so are these updates likely to improve your experience? If you haven’t bought the game yet, does this patch make you more inclined to pick it up? Let us know in the comments! There’s a good chance that at least some of you own it, as the developers have revealed the game has now sold over 50,000 copies. In indie terms, that’s very impressive.

You can keep up with all things Miner Wars on the official websiteand Twitter feed.