Red Faction: Guerrilla drops Games for Windows, Steamworks beta underway

[Update: Nordic has clarified that it's actually going to update Red Faction: Guerrilla to DirectX 11.

[Update: Nordic has clarified that it's actually going to update Red Faction: Guerrilla to DirectX 11. "Instead of just abandoning DX10 we decided to bring it over to DX11," Nordic's Reinhard Pollice said. "With this implementation which will soon be available as beta via Steam we hope to deliver a great Red Faction Guerrilla experience for PC gamers especially on Windows 7 and Windows 8." The DX11 update went into beta yesterday and is expected to be ready for full release within a couple of weeks.]

Nordic Games said at the beginning of this yearthat it would strip the Games for Windows Live requirement from Red Faction: Guerrilla, which it picked up, along with the Red Faction franchise as a whole, following the collapse of original owner THQ. And now it's finally gotten around to doing it.

Executive Producer Reinhard Pollice made the announcement on Steam, where he revealed that a Games for Windows Live sign-in is no longer required to play the game. Matchmaking and multiplayer, along with leaderboards, voice chat, and achievements, are now handled entirely through Steam. The game also now uses the DirectX9 renderer by default, because "DX10 created a lot of problems and resulted in performance issues," and it will attempt to migrate saves from Games for Windows Live to the new system the first time it launches.

In a follow-up post, Pollice explained that while some fans might be disappointed by the decision to default to DX9 instead of making DX10 work properly, it's not actually going to make a noticeable difference. "The whole DX10 support from MS side is not good that's why we believed it's the safest to go for DX9 mode. This will run perfectly on any DX10 system as well," he wrote. "Seriously DX10 in Red Faction Guerrilla was just a marketing gag as there was no real advantage."

To ensure that all is working as it should, Nordic is running a beta version of the overhauled game, open to anyone who wishes to take part. Instructions for doing so are here, but you'll also need a couple of passwords, which can be found in Pollice's forum post.