The Natural Selection 2 competitive scene is remarkable. It is player run, player driven, player focused. And it makes a bang that belies the fact that Natural Selection 2 is not the size of DoTA2, CoD, SC2, or TF2. It’s time for the next big bang. ENSL.org and Unknown Worlds, in association with Multiplay, are pleased to announce the 2013 European Open!

This tournament is open to all European Union teams, and will begin on the 29th of June. There is space for sixteen teams. Four of those spaces will be taken by teams invited by ENSL.org. The grand final will be played live on stage at Insomnia49, the biggest gaming festival in the United Kingdom.

Unknown …

Following on from the March and April entries, it is time to update Planet Earth on what is going on with Natural Selection 2. This is a retrospective look at development in May. To keep the length under control, (April’s entry was a bit overboard!) this post will stick to three topics: Environments, Technical, and Game. Let’s start with Biodome!

Environments

Michael, (‘Olmy’) has been cranking on Biodome. The map is striking, thanks to its new art set and ‘flora’ focus. The accompanying images show some of the stages environments go through, from idea (1, above), to rough 3d layouts (2, below), to texturing, lighting, detailing and prop placement (3, two below).

Biodome will be an absolute blast, but …

It is update time! Build 247 lives, and is live on Steam. Go download it and sink your teeth in!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hhOK-UrdiI

The two main new features in 247 are the in-game vote system and some very basic training bots. The former should improve the ability of players to manage their play experience, and the latter will bring on our doom at the hands of Skynet.

Here is the full changelog (minus some map changes, which will be added to the log later):

Features:

Added Server Details window to the server browser
Added “server name” field to server browser filters
Added filter tabs in server browser
Added history tap to server browser
Added in game voting system (change map, kick player, …

Brian tried to stop us. ‘No! Not another patch! I don’t know if I can handle another patch!’ But we made him do it. The 19th post-release update is now live on Steam, where you can download it, keep it on your hard drive, and even play it!

Build 246 is a fun build because it allows you to play Last Stand, La Fauche, and Fighter – The three mods created during the UWE Modjam just over a week ago. They are in various states of disrepair and dysfunction, but the basics are there and you can host your own games. We are working on releasing the source code soon, so that you can improve on what we …

This weekend, team Nexzil is throwing a big party, and we’re all invited! This is the Nexzil Proving Grounds Tournament. Designed to showcase the up and coming talent in NS2, it’s going to be huge. What’s more, Nexzil have organized a banging prize pool courtesy of Asus Echelon:

Multiple casters will be casting mutiple teams at once across several streams. At 1100PDT / 1400EDT / 1800 UTC Dillon and Hugh will be kicking off the dev stream, and Virsoul will be running his stream. Tune in to both for tips on which other streams are running, and follow for @NS2 on the Twits for up to the minute info on streams / results / and the number …

Aww yeah, it’s patch day! Natural Selection 2 Build 244 is out in the wild and ready for you to play. It was a doozy to get out the door, scheduled for Thursday PDT but sneaking out Friday afternoon PDT instead. This is post-launch update number 17 for NS2! Here is a changelog highlights video:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrFkNxMy3Q

Lots of stuff changed in Build 244. Mineshaft and Refinery received lots of love, Andi made balance tweaks, Dushan changed the way the Spark Editor works, and Brian fixed a bug. The changes to Mineshaft and Refinery have made several tech points much more viable, and eliminated long standing indisyncricies of fights in certain rooms. For example, check out the changes to Operations:…

At Unknown Worlds, Natural Selection 2 is king. Five months since launch, we have not moved on to any new projects and everyone is cranking on NS2 full time. Here’s a video talking about some of the stuff happening in the office at the moment:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jom2-U3986w

In the long term, Biodome is going to be drop dead-gorgeous. It’s not yet near completion, but Cory’s gorgeous artwork should give you a taste of what is to come. Here it is in medium-resolution glory (Silly WordPress not letting us upload files >1mb!).

If there is one theme that characterises NS2 development right now, it is ‘thinking.’ Thinking about gameplay, about engine technology, and about the best way to spend our limited …

Four and a half months have passed since the launch of Natural Selection 2. That’s a long time! The title of this article is somewhat deceptive: It isn’t about the state of the game itself, but our work on the game. What is Unknown Worlds up to? Are we still working on NS2?

Absolutely! Unknown Worlds has no active projects other than NS2. Everyone is working full time on making the game better.

Cory is working on concepts for new additions to the game. It is too early to say which ones will make it in, so we won’t yet reveal what they are. He is also spending lots of time guiding our offsite artists as they create …

Admit it, it just wouldn’t be an Unknown Worlds product if we didn’t push the release date right down to the wire. The Gorgeous release date is February 28th! We were originally aiming for the week of 19 – 22 February, but decided to give the update an extra week to scrub more bugs and fine tune the new content.

Gorgeous is free, and will be automatically delivered by Steam as Build 240. If you own NS2, you won’t have to do anything to get it. It includes Railguns, Gorge Tunnels, Descent, and quite a few fun surprises. Alongside the 13 previous ‘maintenance’ builds, Gorgeous is what the entire UWE team has been working on for the …