Battlezone’s free Gold Edition replace makes VR headsets elective

Those with out fancy VR future-goggles can now benefit from the neon tank-wars of Rebellion’s Battlezone. While I’d assumed that the Gold Edition replace for the sport could be a separate launch or some method of paid improve, I’m glad to be incorrect right here. Today, the Gold Edition rolled out as a free replace to all present gamers, opening the door to an entire new set of gamers.

This specific iteration of Battlezone (to not be confused with the current Battlezone: Combat Commander) is a multiplatform, VR-centric tank shooter with a pointedly old-school vibe and a splash of roguelike randomness in its procedurally technology ranges and missions. Formerly unique for the flamboyant headgear membership, the Gold Edition replace permits anybody with a monitor, a gamepad or mouse and keyboard to affix in.

The (solely beauty) DLC has been made free as of this replace, letting you paint your tank in a spread of much more lurid colors and enhance the cockpit with 2000AD-themed bobbleheads. They’ve additionally made cross-interface multiplayer doable, and it must be attention-grabbing to see which management technique – if any – has the benefit now.

While they have been monkeying round with the engine, Rebellion took the chance to tune up the sport a bit normally. Environments over the course of a marketing campaign ought to now be extra assorted, AI ought to now be much less prone to get misplaced whereas navigating, the radar must be simpler to learn and some stability tweaks have been made to weapons and end-of-level rewards.

To assist be sure that gamers can talk, they’ve additionally added textual content chat through keyboard, which ought to assist clean over any gaps left in multiplayer, assuming the textual content is chunky sufficient to learn in VR. They’ve additionally cleaned up a number of long-standing bugs, which you’ll see in the full patch notes here.

Battlezone: Gold Edition is available now via Steam for £30/$35.