The First Watch Games team pulled an enthralling show that has been hyped up ever since its announcement, there has been a lot of speculation in the community regarding this major update, and the big break that was in finally revealing the new rogue, “Switchblade” also known as, Helena. The grand reveal, which was on Twitch featured lucky drops for the people watching, as further incentive for following the show. First Watch Games created a great job in building the excitement and meeting expectations, as they have in their previous iterations of the update notes show.
The breakdown
Starting off strong, the long-awaited, 6v6 King of The Hill is going to be the new core game mode, replacing Extraction. The hills in the game mode will be randomised, apart from the first one which will always remain in the same starting location, aiming for it to be fair for both teams. Sadly, this mode will not be supported on the Switch for now but will be available on PC, Playstation, and Xbox as the next patch drops.
In another attempt at fixing spawn killing, Strikeout will now have spawn flipping, an enemy getting close to your spawn location will lead to you spawning in another location. Another major change was the fact that assists will now only give 250$ opposed to the previous 500$ price tag, as in the reveal it was said that this was a bit too big of an income for an assist, and this aims at making a drastic economy shift, as gold will be naturally funnelled towards the kills by comparison. Another interesting change was present in now allowing ability and gadget usage while zip-lining, allowing players more freedom and creativity as they no longer have to risk as much.
The main theme in this upcoming patch as spoken in the show was delivering what the community has asked for, and there was as such a very long list of changes for weapons, where many weapons saw balance changes and shifts in power, such as pretty much all shotguns getting balance changes. A detailed list of weapon balance changes can be found in this thread. Moreover, there was also a lot of changes, to Rogues as well, most notably, seeing the quite low win-rates, Dima saw a buff to the MIRV launcher fuse being reduced from 1.8 seconds to 1.5 seconds, and having stalker instead of nimble hands. Additionally, Trench’s barge wire will deal 5 damage every point 25 seconds you pass through, adding a sense of realism as it is damaging, and adding a new dynamic to gameplay, where wires have to be tread around with caution. The full list of Rogue changes can be found in the following thread.
The reveal of “Switchblade”
The grand finale of the show was the final reveal of Switchblade. Lore wise, Switchblade had been running all her life, running, for her life. But she never knew why she was chased, or who was chasing her. Desperate to seek answers, Switchblade was offered a deal by the director of Rogue Company, she will be granted the answers she sought, in exchange, she was the perfect fit for a mission to break Ronin out of jail, someone unknown, low profile, and she was the perfect fit. And alongside her story, was the announcement that Rogue bios will be coming in the near future, in an upcoming update.
Switchblade was revealed to be the brash, aggressive breacher for the team. Her passive, Fight and Flight is the perfect tool for an entry fragger, in order to make big plays, flashing and going with the usage of her acquired movement speed makes her play the role while having all the aces up her sleeves to make the plays happen. Switchblade’s kit was shown very vaguely and displayed swiftly, but it is clear that her perks focus on engage and sustain, and the weapons at her disposal are tailored to the breaching playstyle, she is going to be an interesting new addition to the game, joining the Rogues with a bang, quite literally.
This takes us to her core ability, the chaos launcher. As said in the show, this is Rogue company’s take on a missile launcher, with the small twist of it being equipped with 3 napalm warheads that drop after the missile impacts and damages the area, and they have a damage over time – Molotov like – effect that packs a big punch, and is the perfect tool to play around enemies behind slim cover, clearing angles, or just taking enemies down directly! And here is a clip of exactly that!
All in all, the new update for Rogue Company is looking massive, new Rogue, 6v6 King of the Hill, a completely free season 2 Arms Dealer Event, a plethora of new cosmetic items, and balance changes aimed to cater for the community’s request. A major hats off to the developers for doing an amazing job of engaging and interacting with their community, and it is safe to say that the future of Rogue Company is looking bright!
