- 11 years on, Natural Selection 2's going to that great alien-infested spaceship in the sky - 15 February 2023
I guess this is really two news pieces in one. The first bit of news is that apparently Natural Selection 2 has been getting updates for the last 11 years, ever since it was released at the tail-end of 2012. The second bit is about how that's all over now: Unknown Worlds Entertainment has "ceased active development" on the game as of yesterday... Read more.
- Unknown Worlds Entertainment ceases active development of Natural Selection 2 - 14 February 2023
10 years since its official release and over 117 updates later, active development of Natural Selection 2 has ended. Our team and this community have provided many years of passion and support for this game. Over the years we had the opportunity to meet and collaborate with so many of you whether at an expo, live tournament, Discord or playing on a server. We thank you for your support and commitment to NS2 and know that this game would not have been the same without you. Now it’s time to look to the future and continue on to other projects within the company. While we won’t be actively working on NS2, we will still continue to host matched play servers so that community members will be able to play games on-demand with other players or bots. Although this isn’t goodbye, we still would like to say a very heartfelt thank you to you, our community and to all of those that worked with us o…
- HOTFIX Update 344 - 30 December 2022
Greetings! We just deployed a hotfix to the game that resolves several issues with skill values not updating in certain cases. Your game version number will increase to reflect 344 after you receive the update from Steam. Please allow time for the server operators to update their servers to the latest version as well. Thanks to everyone for providing the useful data that led to these fixes! Changelog Fixed rounds submitted with less than 12 players preventing future rounds from submitting. Fixed several issues that could cause a user's skill value to not be updated Fixed a fade hallucination movement script error Fixed a fade hallucination targeting marine error Fixed Gorge bots infinitely building other players' clogs or hydras
- Matched Play v1.0 Released! - 9 December 2022
Matched Play v1.0 is officially released! We have made several changes and fixes to the system over the last few months, but our official release includes improved regional servers with more dedicated power for a better performing experience. Our programmers have been hard at work behind the scenes working on new and improved bots. Bots have been reworked from the ground up to provide a much more intuitive and similar gameplay mechanics of a real player. All life forms and commanders have had changes and improvements added so that you can play a game by yourself or with a small group of friends and not need to wait or fill a lobby. All of the official maps have been updated in one form or another to add better bot functionality and additional player gameplay experiences. We would also like to thank psyk for all of their hard work to bring us our newest official map AYUMI. Inspired by th…
- Matched Play Beta 4 - Update 342 Released - 27 June 2022
Changelog Tweaks / Improvements Added a Top Bar UI toggle to the advanced options menu. The Observatory’s scanned Status Effect icon will always show for Aliens within range, regardless of HUD detail settings. (Similar to the Parasite status effect icon for Marines.) Re-added the Railgun Exo’s target outline HUD effect on all Aliens and resolved the performance issues when looking at something far beyond the effect’s maximum range. (Thanks Axtel!) Three additional status effect icons added: Nerve Gas, Spores and Armor Healing. All status effects are now clearly marked as buffs/debuffs. Matched Play Changes New Friends Group feature where you can invite up to 2 other friends before joining a public lobby, to end up on the same team! There is a maximum of two friend groups per public lobby, and one group per Team. New Private Lobby feature where only those whom you invite can play in your…
- Update 341 Released! - 3 February 2022
Update 341 is now available on steam and includes multiple updates to maps and a bunch of bug fixes and tweaks to both the game and matched play. There are also additional updates to the balance which you can find in the in-game menu. Remember all sales of NS2 and DLC directly affect our development budget and allow our team to continue work on NS2. Changelog Tweaks / Improvements Death screen has been made smaller in overall size, hides when the map is opened, the fade to black lasts only 2 seconds, and the killfeed is no longer hidden. This should be more in line with the previous deathscreen experience over the years. Thanks everyone for your feedback on this feature! Re-added text drop shadows to the in-game chat text elements. Changed the text drop shadow rendering feature to fix severe FPS losses on certain graphics driver and hardware configurations. (Thanks, Axtel!) Added Drop s…
- New Year Balance Updates - 27 December 2021
This set of changes is targeted at refining some aspects of game pacing, making some quality of life improvements, and adds some new Matched Play exclusive changes that will only be employed when playing the Matched Play game mode. One of the key changes that will apply to both player counts is the reduction of p-res per tick. Now that servers have been playing with 10 versus 10 for some time, and with the introduction of Matched Play 6 versus 6, we felt this was the right time to re-introduce this p-res rate which will make lifeforms and weapons alike slightly more precious. Changelog Gameplay General: Resources: Player p-res income rate is now 0.1 per tick (down from 0.125) Alien starting p-res is now 15 (up from 12) Fade Cost reduced to 35 (down from 37) Onos Cost reduced to 55 (down from 62) Increase Marine starting pres to 20 from 15 Healing Softcap: Softcap is now 12% eHP/s with a…
- Update 340 - Matched Play Beta v2 - 16 December 2021
A precious but lost TSF resource once again comes into play, returning to TANITH! We are thrilled and excited to release this updated vision of the classic map from Natural Selection. Special thanks to Zavaro and the mapping team on this awesome addition to the map pool. With the release of TANITH we are also providing the next phase of the Match Play, Beta v2, in which we have made some bug fixes and added the ability to invite steam friends to the lobby you are in. A new Matched Play progression system has been added, allowing you to unlock all sorts of assets and customization to your Marine and Alien. We are still actively working on Private Lobbies and Group Queuing, which we know are our biggest requests for Matched Play. There is also a list of quality of life changes we hope to have in our 1.0 release of Match Played (planned release in early 2022). This update includes changes…
- Update 338 - Matched Play BETA - 17 August 2021
https://2i1suz1s0n5g1i6ph4z0sw1b-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/ns2/files/2021/08/338.jpg Update 338 includes fixes found with the initial release of MATCHED PLAY (read more here). MATCHED PLAY lobbies are once again active and ready for use. Some additional regions have been added/removed based on performance feedback. Your continued use and feedback on the system while in BETA will help us refine features while we move towards delivering the 1.0 version soon. Remember all sales of NS2 and DLC directly affect our development budget and allow our team to continue work on NS2. Changelog Fixes Wiped existing Matched Play penalties for all players Fixed players getting stuck in the Ready Room due to multiple causes. Removed the Norway server for the time being from the list of Matched Play regions due to performance issues (We’ll be closely watching performance for servers and can make other adju…
- Update 337 - Matched Play BETA - 4 August 2021
https://2i1suz1s0n5g1i6ph4z0sw1b-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/ns2/files/2021/08/blog_337.jpg The Development team never stops and although at times some updates don’t seem as full of changes, there is always behind the scenes efforts being made. One of those biggest efforts over the last year has been our new Matched Play system, code named Thunderdome. Update 337 is our big unveiling to the general public of the new Matched Play BETA and a flurry of other changes and updates throughout the game. Matched Play in its current state will allow 12 players to be matched by region and skill levels to the best of HIVE’s ability. You then play two rounds on an officially hosted server. The intent of this system is to create a better experience for players looking to get in and play as soon as possible and not wait on servers in spectator mode for a slot that may or may not open. There are still more…
- THUNDERDOME / MATCHED PLAY Q&A - 3 July 2021
https://2i1suz1s0n5g1i6ph4z0sw1b-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/ns2/files/2021/07/blog-td.jpg What is it and How does it work? Thunderdome has been the fun codename for this project that is now being officially labeled as Matched Play in the main menu. We plan on releasing the Beta phase of this feature in the next few weeks. To put it simply it is a matchmaking system. It matches players together in a lobby of 12. When it performs a search it sorts by the smallest number of available player slots in order to fill up existing lobbies, and then that is sorted by a median skill level that is closest to the searching player, and then it finally refines that based on geodesic distance. Or said another way: The system attempts to find you a match quickly that is as fair as possible both through skill levels and latency. The system always tries to find both the closest skill value to you personally,…
- NS2 Open Tournament - 27 March 2021
Our friends at the Natural Selection League are hosting a one-weekend, no holds barred clash of some of the best players and teams in this Open Tournament! Saturday the 27th at 2pm EDT / 7pm CET Sunday the 28th at 1pm EDT / 6pm CET
- MERRY GORGEMAS! UPDATE 336 RELEASED! - 22 December 2020
https://unknownworlds.com/ns2/files/2020/12/blog_336.jpg It’s hard to believe that another year is coming to a close. Sneaky Saint Gorgie is up to their old tricks and while some Marines have been getting some nasty yucky and gooey clogs in their stockings, that silly Saint Gorgie also seems to be dropping off lots of goodies too! We’ve expanded our available skins, and a whole new list of items have been added to your customize menu for you to further put your style on display. Some of our previous packs or individual skins have been expanded to cover more items and there are also a handful of all new individual weapons skins to check out. If you owned a now expanded DLC pack previously, then you get the added skins to that pack free of charge. This is our thank you to you for your continued support of our team and development of Natural Selection 2. If you don’t already own some of th…
- UPDATE 335 - HIVE SKILL 3.0 Released! - 28 October 2020
https://unknownworlds.com/ns2/files/2020/10/blog_335_flat.jpg October is always an exciting time of year for our Natural Selection Development Team, and this year is no exception. 18 years ago a totally unique and amazing new mod for half-life hit the interwebs and for many us, changed our lives. Fast forward to today, and its sequel Natural Selection 2 is celebrating eight years since release. Our Team and dedicated community continue to get games active and going 24hrs a day around the world and today is our next step in supporting all of you into the future. Update 335 is the official release of Hive Skill 3.0 (see our previous blog detailing the changes), our latest update to the backend skill tracking and sorting system for NS2. Hive Skill 3.0 for the first time introduces per team skill tracking including commander roles too. Our hope is to help better sort teams for more even rou…
- METRO Update Released! - 26 June 2020
https://2i1suz1s0n5g1i6ph4z0sw1b-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/ns2/files/2020/06/blog_333-596x335.png Eclipse Tower is in ruin after the Kharaa invasion. The battle was brought home in the name of “scientific research,” deemed necessary to protect our future. We thought the battle was over and all were safe, but we were wrong… The Kharaa have escaped to the streets below Eclipse Tower and are already advancing throughout the district. Reinforcements have been called in as the streets, markets and clubs are evacuated. The war for our human existence rages on. We have to hurry to eliminate the threat; they’ve reached the Metro lines and can quickly spread out across the entire city. As the fights continue into the tunnels of the Metro, shimmers of blue and white appear in the darkness. A faint shriek can be heard in the distance, it seems familiar but all the same different. What new terror Ler…
- Sneak peek: METRO show match - Watch the VOD! - 20 June 2020
Check out the new map METRO, coming soon in update 333 in a casted 6v6 brawl! METRO features a never before seen new cityscape aesthetic and awesome new art! Watch the Stream VoD here on twitch!
- UPDATE 332 Released! - 27 May 2020
Greetings Citizens! While it’s been a while since the B.M.A.C. production came online through the Trans-Gov Federation, we’ve been in the background quietly tinkering away on deep system improvements within the mainframe while aboard this station. We recognize the Kharaa threat is an ever present and increasing one, and because of that the Federation wants you to know that your well being is important to them. As such we’ve made things go faster. We’ve oiled up some rusty parts. And we’ve reprogrammed the nanites to not be so painful upon injection. We think we’ve made good progress and are excited to show you some of our work by getting it into your hands for assessment double time. Just be sure you don’t forget to fill out the p3.1415 forms in the Discord server to let us know how satisfactory your experience was. Contained within TSF-Software-Patch.332 is a host of improvements to bo…
- Upcoming Balance Patch Notes - 8 May 2020
------------------------------------------------------------ Here is a snippet of what's in store for Patch 332, which is coming soon! This changelog contains the Balance Patch Notes, there is much more in the full changelog which will be released when the build goes live. GENERAL ● The health and armor status (hp bar) has been removed from enemy players in combat (We recommend enabling damage numbers) ● Re-drop block times for commanders placing cysts and resource towers is now 1 second (down from 5-7 seconds) ● Fixed cysts sometimes dying when placed (From Katzenfleisch) ● Fixed commanders forced to repress the grid key for dual action items (From Katzenfleisch) ● Fixed scan not having a visual range displayed (From Katzenfleisch) ● Fixed structures being detected but not visible if scanned (From Katzenfleisch) LIFEFORMS SKULK ● Model size decreased by 10% (90% original size) ● Bite c…
- State of Development: March 2020 - 17 March 2020
Hello Everyone! There hasn't been a game update in the last months as we have been busy working on some larger features. To keep you all in the loop here is a short summary of what we are working on. And what you can expect from the next game update. Gameplay Since December our Balance Team has been busy cooking up the latest set of tweaks and shake ups for gameplay. We said a bittersweet goodbye to BeigeAlert during this time as he pursues an exciting new opportunity. However this caused a bit of a delay for the development of gameplay changes. Enter Katzenfleisch joining the team! He has been working together with Ghoul since February to get us back on track. Trucking along and implementing the balance changes requested by the balance team (led by Rantology). To have a look at what is cooking in the stove join a server running the UWE Balance Beta mod. Look for servers with “UWE Beta…
- UPDATE 331 - B.M.A.C. Reporting for Duty! - 18 November 2019
https://2i1suz1s0n5g1i6ph4z0sw1b-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/ns2/files/2019/11/blog_331596.jpg This latest update brings something new and special to the game. Introducing the B.M.A.C, two exciting new robotic models joining the Marine forces. The Bipedal-Mobile-Automated-Custodian and Bipedal-Mobile-Automated-Countermeasure are here to help and serve your needs. Play as one of these new marine models with up to 10 different variants for you to choose from. The B.M.A.C. also includes two brand new voices with all new taunts and requests. Community Development Team members Vlaad and Sweets worked very hard with our team over the last couple months developing the models and sounds respectively, and a HUGE shout out to Rune for all the trailer help and going beyond the extra mile. We’ve had so much fun building these into the game and hope that you’ll enjoy them too. The rest of the patch has…
