Welcome to Project ZETA

Greetings everyone!

We’re thrilled to see all the hype surrounding the upcoming Project ZETA playtest and wanted to share some of the updates that you can expect to see. For everyone just joining us and playing for the first time, we can’t wait to see you in the arena! And for our returning players, you’ll be seeing a slew of new changes that we’ll talk about below.

As a quick reminder, you can head back to the Aran Plateau from June 25 to 28 across Europe and North America during each region's timeslot below each day during the test:

● Europe: 6 PM - 9 PM CEST

● North America: 5 PM - 8 PM PDT / 8 PM - 11 PM EDT

Before getting too far ahead, we just wanted to express how thankful we are for all the feedback we’ve received from our previous tests. Seriously, we couldn’t have gotten here without all of you, and we’re hoping with this latest test where anyone can jump in and play that the changes we’ve made to the core experience keep you, and your friends, coming back. We want as much feedback as possible on what you liked and didn’t like about Project ZETA, and we welcome you to head to our official Discord to let us know what you think when the playtest starts on June 25!

Global Test Highlights

This global test brings in the battlefield we’ve been hard at work adjusting based on your feedback. Introducing a completely revamped Aran Plateau! We’ve worked extensively on improving readability, emphasizing regional distinctions, and reworking the layout of the map so that each match flows in a way that feels intuitive and unique. The overall scale of the map has been reduced to offer a more action-oriented experience and to minimize the fatigue of traversal from match to match.

Through the feedback we’ve gathered, it was clear that there was too much downtime for each match, and with this iteration it’s something we wanted to avoid. Movement should now flow more naturally when farming up monster camps, to key objectives, along with introducing a variety of new environmental gadgets such as the Launch Gate, Jump Pad, Center Gate, Emergency Revive, and Vision Barrier.

Regarding our roster of monsters, you’ll be seeing some new faces as you make your way around the Aran Plateau! We’re introducing new Roamer monsters scattered around the map that drop some rewards for you, should you take them down! Along with camps like the Automata, and redesigned boss monster buffs that give more distinct combat advantages, there’s plenty of new ways to farm and perfect your routes.

The in-game HUD has also been completely overhauled. Through new player health bars, repositioning crucial information like camp health bars and objectives, combat indicators, buff and debuff readability, and a completely overhauled leaderboard, our goal was to streamline information and help teams, at a glance, make their next move.

Players picking up Project ZETA for the first time will be greeted with an updated tutorial to help them get used to navigating the all-new Aran Plateau. We’re also including new options like path guiding that marks routes throughout the map, recommended skill leveling and auto-leveling, as well as a ‘Recommended’ tab in the CODEX shop that suggests builds that suit your chosen hero. Other new features like the spectator system in custom matches, execution system, and S-Prism scouting were all built based on the amazing feedback that we’ve received from players like you!

We’ve given the entire roster of heroes some small updates by adjusting their hitboxes to be more in-line with their character models, with the goal of making combat feel more refined and consistent.

Some new additions to the CODEX shop have also been introduced for each role, giving you more options when it comes to building your hero from match to match.

Meet the newest hero joining the Aran Plateau, Mika Mist! Superstar, Mika Mist, is the newest mage hero with an emphasis on staying mobile.

Mika Mist’s passive increases her movement speed every time she lands a skill, letting her keep enemies off balance while maintaining perfect spacing in fights. Keep enemies in check with Six Chorus, slow down enemy heroes and stay in the fight with Mega Shout, and lead your team into battle with the charm of Love Trap, all while staying on the move and dishing out continuous burst damage of her Miracle Stage.

Catch her if you can!

There’s even more we’re going to be covering below, but throughout this next test we want to hear your honest thoughts about how your time playing Project ZETA. We read every single piece of feedback that comes in, and without it we wouldn’t be able to shape this game together.

Our goal has always been to keep updates coming in steadily, and to really deliver on making ZETA a multi-team tactical arena where players can show off endless skill expression from match to match. We can’t overstate how thankful we are for everyone coming through and playing ZETA, and we can’t wait to see you in the next test starting on June 25!

With that said, let’s dive into what you can expect for the latest version of Project ZETA!

New Hero - Mika Mist

The music-loving idol, Mika Mist, joins the Aran Plateau.

Renewed Aran Plateau

The revamped Aran Plateau makes its debut! You’ll battle it out across a brand new environment, but this time with 4 teams per match instead of 5. Throughout testing the new layout, we’ve found that reducing the team count still allows teams to have plenty of choice on how they want to play each match, along with seeing increased action, and ultimately reducing downtime across the board.

Lord Nazan is also still at home in the Plateau with a new appearance and fully revamped combat patterns that are easier to read, even in those chaotic moments where multi-team action frequently occurs.

New Gadgets

You’ll see some brand new gadgets placed around the Plateau to help you traverse, scout, and control the flow of combat.

Launch Gate: Launch your team to another point on the other side of the map.

Jump Pad: Hop onto the Jump Pad to vault yourself over certain terrain.

Center Gate: Stops projectiles and blocks access to the Center Zone. The Center Gate only stays open for a short amount of time once activated, but will deal damage and knock back enemy heroes once it closes.

Boss Gate: The only gate that stands between you and Lord Nazan. Open at your own risk.

Vision Barrier: A translucent barrier as you approach the Inner Zone of the map. While you can pass through it freely at any time, from a distance you’ll be unable to see who, or what, is on the other side. As you get closer, you’ll be able to identify what may be lurking for you behind the barrier. Set up ambushes, juke your enemies, and use the Vision Barrier to your advantage.

ER System: Bring back your fallen allies to the battlefield with the Emergency Revive system.

Photon Transporter: A short-range teleporter that lets you see what’s on the other side before you move.

Watcher: Allows you to keep an eye on a designated area for a set amount of time, helping you stay ahead of ambushes and flanks before they happen.

Execution System

The Execution System allows anyone who picks up the Execution Buff to instantly eliminate an enemy hero whose health drops below a certain threshold. When holding the buff and attacking an enemy hero, a mark appears on the target along with a threshold line on their HP bar, where your next attack will immediately take them out of the fight.

CODEX Shop Recommended Tab

On top of new items being added into the CODEX Shop, the new Recommended tab helps you quickly put together a build based on items that fit the hero you’re playing.

New Player Guide

One of the larger areas of focus for us this playtest was ensuring that new players are able to pick up and quickly learn Project ZETA with the help of some new features. Path guiding points out the main routes around the Aran Plateau to help you familiarize yourself with the newly redesigned map. As mentioned before, we’ve also introduced auto-leveling for your skills, along with skill leveling recommendations that suggests the right skill for your hero. All of these can be toggled on or off via settings.

In-Game HUD Rework

We’ve worked on streamlining the HUD in a way that allows the player to read crucial information at a glance, giving them the information they need as quickly and easy to understand as possible. By tidying up the HP bars, battle feed, boss HP bar, and the leaderboard, we feel it’s never been easier to read the state of the game.

Team rankings have also been adjusted, with rankings now determined in the event of a tie, solely by the total Shards a team has acquired.

Guide NPC Vela

Vela, who guides you through the battlefield, appears in different stages according to the importance of the information she conveys.

Hero Name Change - Kurogane Mori → Kurogane Isamu

To all our diehard Mori mains, you might notice something slightly different. We’ve changed their name from Kurogane Mori to Kurogane Isamu. During our localization process, we learned that their original name occasionally reads differently from its original intent in some languages.

Rest assured, your favorite Ronin is still slicing and dicing their way through the Aran Plateau.

Resolved Issues

The team has been hard at work squashing bugs and improving the stability of the game for this playtest, with over 300 bugs fixed since our last playtest.

Known Issues

We’ve identified the following issues in this build, and are working quickly on fixing them.

● When inviting players to a pre-made team, an error message is occasionally shown to a player who accepted the invite and the pre-made setup fails; reconnecting typically resolves this.

● The skill damage reduction effect of Miracle of Lazarus T4 disappears immediately after it triggers.

● Frame rate may drop when a Watcher is activated on the map.

● When an indicator is shown from a skill-key input, the camera view may rotate.

● After reconnecting to a match, the CODEX Shop may not appear correctly.

● The in-game UI is occasionally shown during the end-of-match sequence.

● AI minimap icons are displayed incorrectly in certain situations.

● The description text for owned buffs is displayed incorrectly.

● After reviving from death, the death effect remains persistently on the player’s nameplate.

● Senes' player model may appear blue at long ranges.

● Prism scoring sound may not play when early recall.

● Spectator Mode is very early in development and may not work properly.

We cannot wait for you to try out all of the changes in our upcoming playtest from June 25 – 28!

Feel free to join us in our official Discord server for all real-time updates and staying up-to-date with everything Project ZETA: https://discord.gg/zetathegame

And if you haven’t already, you can request access at any time by heading to our Steam page: https://bit.ly/zetadsc

We’ll see you soon in the Aran Plateau!