Gigantic, the upcoming MOBA for the Xbox One and Windows 10 will end its closed beta test today. However, developer Motiga will continue developing the game with a lot of new content and improvements in the works.
Motiga has had its share of troubles in the last several months. In December, it announced it had laid off over 25% of its team members, and in February it revealed that even more team members had left "temporarily". In a more recent blog post, Motiga said their dev team was still working on Gigantic and the developer even has a few job openings.
However, the team has decided to close the current 24/7 closed beta for Gigantic to help improve the game for its next phase. Motiga posted a list of the features it will be working on:
- Usability: There's a ton of stuff we're working on to improve your interaction with the game: a much needed HUD and UI reboot, a new experience for brand new players, in-game communication advancements, and more.
- Game Service Features: We're focusing on improvements to matchmaking, server and client performance, and stability and connection issues, while adding new features such as the ability to queue with specific heroes, and systems which will help discourage match and queue drops.
- Game Rules, Balance, and Polish: If we were to list all of the things we are working on here, we'd run out of blog space. However, a few of the big initiatives include adjustments to ensure that comebacks are possible, improvements to individual hero balance, and changes which ensure that matches are strategically interesting.
- All New Content: We're actively playtesting and iterating on three new maps at the moment (with the focus on one in particular), have a number of new heroes in the works, as well as some exciting hero skins and customization on the way.
- Infrastructure: As we work towards the next stage of beta, we'll need to make significant infrastructure improvements. Because of this, there will be some scheduled beta events (after we've suspended 24/7 testing) in order to stress test servers and service improvements.
While the closed beta is indeed ending, a "Core" group of testers that are still under NDA will be expanded in the coming months. Those testers get first access to Gigantic's upcoming content and features:
That means inviting our most passionate, constructive, and trusted players to provide us with first-look feedback and impressions on our progress. Investing more time and attention on the Core community is a huge step for Gigantic, and we're excited to be bringing more of you into Core. If that sounds exciting to you, watch for the official invitation or sign-up, and help us make Gigantic better; you'll have some fun and get to beat up on devs on a regular basis (or vice versa).
