Resistance: Burning Skies Message Board

Triumph or become a memory in Resistance: Burning Skies.

In war, men fall and heroes rise. Every battle has a victor, every standoff has a loser. It is for these moments that we are remembered by our brothers in arms, whether in the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. How will you be remembered? Will you triumph, or join the wall?

The online battles in Resistance: Burning Skies are heating up, so if you don’t have your copy yet, go get it today. If you’re still not sure, download the trial version from the PSN Store so you can try the game out for yourself. Or, come join Rob Huebner from Nihilistic Studios today at 3:00pm Pacific Time, who will be answering all your burning questions. To find the live chat, just go here and click the red button in the upper-right hand corner of the page directing you to live chat with Rob.

We also have news today for those of you who pre-ordered – the Resistance avatars included in your pre-order voucher will be available on June 26th. We apologize for the wait, but for those of you who have already redeemed your voucher code, the avatars will be waiting for you to download as soon as the store publish goes live on the 26th.

The wait is over! Resistance: Burning Skies hits store shelves and PSN today, ushering in a new era of portable first-person shooters. Dual-analog control isn’t the only thing going for Resistance: Burning Skies though. In addition to the multiplayer features and weapon functionality we’ve introduced over the last few months, Resistance: Burning Skies brings a new hero into the war between man and the Chimera – and Tom Riley’s story is one you won’t want to miss. Take a peek at the debut of our Resistance: Burning Skies launch trailer!

This isn’t all we have to share with you today though. You’ll remember back in April when we talked about Resistance: Burning Skies’ multiplayer modes we mentioned that through “near,” Resistance: Burning Skies introduces a new social perk which rewards players with XP multipliers that you can carry into multiplayer battle. Today we’re going to shed a little more light on exactly what that means.

So, as you play through the multiplayer experience in Resistance: Burning Skies, there’s a chance that you will become “infected” with a form of the Chimera virus. Although being infected with the Chimera virus didn’t end too well for Nathan Hale, these particular strains of the Chimera virus actually give you a bonus to your in-game XP multiplier. That means that you can have double and in some cases up to triple XP for a limited amount of time to gain levels and to unlock upgrades more quickly.

The really interesting part is that once you’re infected, through “near” you can spread the virus to your friends or drop it off as a gift to a fellow PS Vita player. Conversely you can also pick up the virus that’s been left behind by other Resistance players via “near.”

If you’re a shooter fan and enjoy portable gaming, get out there and pick up Resistance: Burning Skies today and join the fight against the Chimera on PS Vita!

PlayStation. Does the word send a chill down your spine? Does it caress your senses with wave upon wave of irresistible pleasure? No? Do you like PlayStation? Then you're certainly in the right place. Welcome to Podcast Beyond, your link to the IGN crew that pushes news, opinions and utter hilarity straight to your ears (and subsequently, your brain)...

Shooter fans everywhere are starting to get excited since we’re now less than a month away from the May 29th release of Resistance: Burning Skies. Two weeks ago, we introduced the world to Burning Skies’ competitive multiplayer experience, and so far, we’ve been thrilled with how much fans and media have enjoyed playing it! I know many of you are chomping at the bit to get out there and start taking the war against the Chimera online, so you’ll be happy to hear that last week, Resistance: Burning Skies went gold. To celebrate, we’d like to show you our new trailer, which focuses on the game’s unique feature set.

Resistance: Burning Skies brings a lot of “firsts” to the PS Vita – First-ever dual-analog FPS control on a portable device, the first competitive multiplayer shooter experience on the PS Vita, and the first support for Party voice chat. The real question though, is who is going to be the first to Platinum Resistance: Burning Skies? In order to help you along, we thought we’d share the game’s Trophy list:

Trophy Name Rank Description Platinum Platinum Earn all trophies Staten Island Bronze Successfully complete level 1 Hidden Trophy Gold Upgrade Bronze Upgrade a weapon in Single Player Campaign Combine Silver Upgrade both slots in Single Player Campaign Customize Gold Upgrade all weapons in Single Player Campaign Indiscriminate Bronze Kill an enemy with every weapon in the Single Player Campaign Variety Bronze Use the Secondary Fire of each weapon in the Single Player Campaign Dangerous Bronze Kill 250 Chimera in the Single Player Campaign Deadly Silver Kill 500 Chimera in the Single Player Campaign Lethal Gold Kill 1000 Chimera in the Single Player Campaign Axed Silver Kill 50 Chimera with Riley’s Axe in the Single Player Campaign Overheat Silver Kill 50 Chimera by detonating their heat stacks in the Single Player Campaign Boom Silver Kill 100 Chimera with headshots in the Single Player Campaign Impaled Silver Kill an Impaler Executed Silver Kill an Executioner Giant Gold Kill any combination of 18 Impalers or Executioners Hidden Trophy Gold Hidden Trophy Gold Incite Gold Complete one round of Multiplayer

There are also 5 more Trophies we didn’t mention to avoid any spoilers, but that list should get you started. Keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks, because there’s much more to come before May 29th. Also, if you missed our last post, we’re offering some nice goodies when you pre-order your copy of Resistance: Burning Skies today!

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been talking a lot about the highly anticipated multiplayer mode for Resistance: Burning Skies for PS Vita. Supporting up to eight players over WiFi with a robust arsenal of powerful weapons and the precision and accuracy that come with dual-analog controls, Resistance: Burning Skies is sure to be the best FPS multiplayer experience available on a handheld. We’ve already lifted the lid on the first two modes, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, and just last week at an event in San Francisco we revealed the title’s last multiplayer mode, Survival Mode, an intense power struggle between humans and the gruesome Chimera.

Survival mode pits the players against each other in a race to the finish where only the strong survive. Here’s how it works: in a battle of humans vs. Chimera, six players start as humans and two as Chimera. As the Chimera players make a kils, their human victims are resurrected as Chimera so the balance slowly shifts. As the battle continues, the winner is the human player who lasts the longest in a match. We keep a timer running as you play so you can track your progress.

We really wanted to offer something that was unique to Resistance, keeping with the franchise’s theme around humanity’s struggle to survive against overwhelming odds. We wanted the game to start relatively simple for the humans and then become increasingly harder over time, much like the way the Chimera invaded Asia, then Europe and then America in a flood. Previous Resistance games have had modes similar to this, but Survival is our own special twist to create a new mode that focuses on the balance of power changes. Sure, the humans initially have the upper hand, but as they fall, they fuel the other team. We’ve had several matches in the office that have spectators cheering on the lone surviving human. Everyone knows it’s just a matter of time, but finding that last person is a total adrenaline rush!

We’ve been having a lot of fun developing and testing this mode, and we’ve collected a few tips and tricks along the way that might help you survive a little longer. The first thing, and actually contrary to traditional MP gameplay, is that staying still actually works to your advantage. You might want to try and get behind players so as they start searching an area, you can actually hop back against their search pattern. Dark areas are your friend! We’ve also found that you don’t want to hide next to areas like steam vents because, although obscuring, the motion tends to attract attention. Here’s another tip; always go for the head. The ability to quickly neutralize your opponent and then move on is a huge advantage. This may be hide-and -seek, but your prey is armed! Don’t hang around after you’ve killed someone, bodies are pretty obvious signs that someone is nearby.

In addition to the Survival details, we’re also here to let folks know that we’ll be doing a pre-order bonus for Resistance: Burning Skies, and it’s going to give you a pretty nice advantage as you start your own multiplayer experience. When you pre-order Resistance: Burning Skies at participating retailers, you’ll receive a special bonus that gives you a jump start straight to level five in multiplayer. This should be enough experience for you to unlock your first grenade upgrade (the Hedgehog, which can be used as an area of effect weapon of destruction or placed like a landmine for unsuspecting victims to stumble upon) as well as your first weapon upgrade. In addition to the MP booster, we’re also giving you three character avatars based on Burning Skies’ lead characters Riley, Ellie and a Chimera, along with a custom PS Vita lock screen theme. Hopefully, this will be all the head start you need to pown your friends.

Let us know what you think of the new Survival mode.

If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, come by our community meetup tonight to go hands-on with Resistance: Burning Skies in a kill-or-be-killed multiplayer tournament!

If it’s true that a shooter is only as good as its weapons, Resistance: Burning Skies is shaping up to be a delight indeed. Take the Mule, a new double-barreled shotgun that dishes out devastating buckshot blasts and launches explosive bolts via its over-barrel crossbow. Or the ever-popular Auger, whose projectiles hungrily chew through walls to seek out warm flesh. But my favorite gun so far is the lethal Hunter rifle, a long-range Chimeran burst-fire weapon with the ability to deploy an attack drone that you can guide towards your multiplayer foes with taps on the front touchscreen — tres sophisticated!

Playing a series of Wifi multiplayer matches in Resistance: Burning Skies in New York City last week was a valuable reminder that shooting ultra-powerful weapons just feels good man. In an era of multiplayer games that arguably sport too-fussy weapon balancing, unloading with Burning Skies’ unapologetically brutal arsenal was an intoxicating experience that streamlined the action and reminded me of the good old days of Doom and Quake. Despite their immense power, the arsenal is properly tuned for multiplayer balance — the face-melting Hunter rifle boasts a pokier fire rate and reload time, for instance.

Another interesting touch is how each weapon’s secondary fire makes use of PS Vita’s front touchscreen, whether it’s tapping an enemy in order to fire the Bullseye’s homing tag, swiping from top to bottom to load the Mule’s crossbow bolt, or making a stretching motion with your thumbs to “draw” the Auger’s protective shield. Burning Skies makes use of PS Vita’s rear touchscreen as well, with a rear double-tap triggering the all-important run like hell maneuver.

The final game will include six multiplayer maps, but I was only able to try one — a claustrophobic urban map set in and around a crumbling New York City apartment complex. This intimate, atmospheric map was a good fit for Burning Skies’ potent arsenal, making the encounters feel more urgent and high-stakes. The multiplayer war raged through dimly lit stairwells, cluttered rooftops, and a dangerously exposed city street. When the smoke cleared, I stood tall…with a second-place finish. Not bad! Winning multiplayer matches nets you XP that you can cash in to purchase new weapons and mods.

So far, Burning Skies’ eight-player multiplayer mode is confirmed to support free-for-all deathmatch and team deathmatch modes, with a third survivor-type mode remaining in the shadows for now. If you have questions, leave them in the comments…but if you live in San Francisco, why not drop by tonight to try it for yourself?

We at Nihilistic Software are excited to finally be able to pull the wraps off Multiplayer for Resistance: Burning Skies, coming May 29th for PlayStation Vita!

In addition to its all-new single player campaign, Burning Skies features an online (via Wi-Fi) multiplayer in which you and up to seven of your friends can compete over PlayStation Network! We know you’ve all been asking about multiplayer in Burning Skies, so please enjoy the first look at it in this new trailer!

When designing Resistance: Burning Skies, our goal was to bring a high-quality console experience to a handheld, and thanks to the power of the Vita, we’ve ended up with an unprecedented mobile FPS. Experience the dual analog sticks for precision aiming, touch screen interactivity for precise and quick secondary weapon fires, and portable online connectivity.

We’ve just showcased that game at an event in NYC, showing off some of the cool things we’re doing with online:

8 player multiplayer – Small games feature intense 2 vs. 2 combat and large games going all the way up to 4 on 4 action. Choose between Quick Match: a fast and easy way to get up and playing immediately by jumping in an automatic matchmaking session or Party with Friends: use the Vita’s cross-game Party application and Party up with friends to join private matches and take advantage of Party with voice chat.

Rank Up! – Killing enemies and winning matches is the easiest way to earn XP and Rank Up. Be rewarded with bonus XP for your daring feats of skill. For example, you may find yourself well rewarded for killing multiple enemies with a skilled grenade toss. Unlock all your favorite weapons and upgrades from the story campaign as you Rank Up.

Modify & customize your weapons - Upgrades you purchase can be slotted and unslotted from weapons at will, with some even giving your weapons a distinctive visual look. Purchase upgrades for weapons that best suit your personal playstyle. For example, the fan favorite Bullseye can be upgraded with Explosive Tag – which gives your Bullseye Tags and extra explosive kick. But keep in mind if you’re killed, your enemies may pick up your upgraded weapons and use them against you!

Connect Everywhere – You can connect with the PlayStation community no matter where you are via Wi-Fi and 3G through social features including leaderboards and NEAR, PlayStation Vita’s location-based service. Through NEAR, Resistance: Burning Skies introduces a new social perk awarding players valuable XP multipliers to carry into multiplayer battle. Stay tuned as we get closer to launch for all the details on NEAR.

Online play in Resistance: Burning Skies will feature three game modes – Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and a very unique third mode which we’ll be revealing next week. There will be six playable maps, taking you everywhere from the streets of Staten Island to the docks of Bayonne, NJ. You’ll be able to vote prior to each match, allowing you to take the battle between the humans and Chimera to a variety of locales from the game.

Resistance: Burning Skies will be available in North America in stores and on the PSN May 29th for $39.99. But you don’t have to wait til then; if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, join us to go hands-on with Resistance: Burning Skies multiplayer next week! Read the details and RSVP here.

Ever since the PS Vita’s second analog stick was revealed, gamers have been salivating for the first true portable FPS. We’re getting close; Resistance: Burning Skies will be released on May 29th. But what if you don’t want to wait that long? RBS developer Nihilistic will cross the Golden Gate next week to give the public a sneak peek hands-on with the first multiplayer FPS on PS Vita.

This won’t just be a casual run through the multiplayer game modes – we’ll be running a tournament with top players awarded a copy of the game when it releases, and a PS Vita prize package for the top overall gunner.

You know you want this

Of course, food, drinks, and admittance are free. Here are all the details:

Resistance Burning Skies Multiplayer meet-up
When: Wednesday, April 18th, 8-11pm
Where: Thirsty Bear Brewing Company
(upstairs, second floor veranda)
661 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA

All ages welcome – just bring your ID (if you’re under 18, drag along a parent/guardian type person). Don’t forget to RSVP here. Space will be limited, so get there early if you want to get in and compete!

With Resistance: Burning Skies marching steadily towards its May 29th release date on PS Vita, you may have been wondering who Tom Riley is and where his story fits into the grand scheme of the Resistance universe. Today we’re clearing up that question with a new story trailer you can watch right now!

Resistance: Burning Skies is, at its core, a story about an everyday hero becoming a legend. On August 15th, 1951, New York City fireman Tom Riley is called away during a seemingly routine fire call and finds himself thrust into the midst of the brutal Chimeran invasion (Resistance 2 fans: this parallels the period when Nathan Hale returns from Europe). Riley is possessed with a singular determination to find his wife and child, but along the way he’ll be embroiled in a far larger conflict that will determine the fate of New York and leave him a key inspirational hero of the Resistance.

For those of you watching closely, there were a couple other little tidbits revealed in that trailer, including new weapons and enemies. You’re also introduced to the Executioner, a hulking Chimeran monstrosity that boasts a powerful cannon for an arm. Needless to say, the Executor definitely won’t go down as easily as your standard Hybrid. You also caught a glimpse of the potent Hunter rifle, a Chimeran burst-fire carbine that is the predecessor to the Marksman from Resistance 3. The Hunter also packs a surprise in the form of its secondary attack, which fires an offensive drone that attacks nearby enemies — you can direct it to the left and right using PS Vita’s front touchscreen.

Let us know what you think of the trailer in the comments! And stay tuned: In April we’ll be answering your most burning questions about Resistance: Burning Skies — first details on the multiplayer mode!

In case you missed our PS Vita video livechat today, PlayStation’s John Koller revealed an official release date for Resistance: Burning Skies. The Chimera will invade PS Vita on May 29, 2012, bringing you the world’s first portable dual-analog FPS.

Resistance has always boasted iconic visual design, and today we can reveal the Burning Skies box art — a freshly slain Hybrid lying on the streets of New York City with the protagonist’s fire axe resting in the rubble. We like to think it recalls some of the eerie essence of the classic Resistance: Fall of Man box art, but we’d love to hear what you think!

Resistance: Burning Skies pulls you into an entirely new dimension of the Resistance universe. Set in a tale of survival during the August 1951 Chimeran invasion of the East Coast, you take control of Tom Riley, an everyday firefighter from New Jersey who is thrown headfirst into the teeth of the Chimeran war machine, forcing him to redefine his notions of duty and heroism.

As most of you know, this is going to be the first ever dual-analog FPS game on a portable device, and has been built from the ground-up to take full advantage of the power of the PS Vita, including front and rear touchscreen controls. The touchscreen controls add a whole new dimension to the gameplay, delivering a powerful portable shooter experience. Never thought you’d play a console-quality shooter on a portable device? Game Director Harley Baldwin White-Wiedow has one thing to tell you: “TWO STICKS, baby!”

Now get out there and pre-order your copy today. Oh, and be sure to stay tuned in the coming months — we’ll have many more announcements to share soon.

I can’t wait to finally be able to play a proper FPS on the go, and that time will come when Resistance: Burning Skies launches for PlayStation Vita in 2012. Recently, Rob Huebner of developer Nihilistic talked us through the newly-revealed George Washington Bridge area of RBS. Since this is Day 1 of the Chimeran invasion, don’t expect a leisurely jaunt across the Hudson River; the bridge is lousy with Chimeran Scouts, armed with infrared beam-enabled sniper rifles.

In this video, Huebner narrates as producer Frank Simon drags and drops grenades right where he wants them. Also, take note of touch-screen melee controls, the first person cover system, the touch-activated weapon wheel, and the Sixeye sniper rifle’s alt-fire mode.

Resistance: Burning Skies for Vita is looking like one of the stand-out games for Sony's new portable. Developed by Nihilistic Software and published by Sony, it offers gamers on the move a console-like experience (read our Gamescom preview for more). Robert Huebner, president of Nihilistic Software, and SCEA's Frank Simon are spear-heading the game's development. After recently getting a chance to play the game, we sat down for a chat to talk a bit about Burning Skies...

Ever since the PS Vita was unveiled in January, the handheld’s dual analog sticks have promised a proper first-person shooter experience on the go. The reveal of Resistance: Burning Skies at PlayStation’s gamescom press conference showed that the future of portable shooters will be bright from the outset.

Immediately after the conference ended, I met up with Rob Heubner from developer Nihilistic, who detailed some of what we can expect from the Vita’s first FPS foray. The next morning, Huebner and producer Frank Simon presented an extended play-by-play for international media.

Huebner said the studio’s core mission was to create a ”no-compromises experience with all the elements you’d expect from a Resistance game.” The Burning Skies demo fit neatly into the Resistance universe, but brought significant new features that evolved the game’s interactivity. As mentioned in the press conference, you’ll battle new Chimeran enemies with new weapons, all through the eyes of protagonist Tom Riley — a New York City fire fighter.

Burning Skies takes place right before Resistance 2, filling in the lost years and giving players a ground-eye view of the day the Chimera came to NYC. Huebner and Simon guided us through Ellis Island, which in the game’s alternate universe isn’t a tourist trap but a SRPA research facility. The base is under attack by the Chimera, who are dead-set on recovering something of interest. A weapon, perhaps?

A playthrough of the demo revealed a few surprises in that realm. I quickly got my hands on a Chimeran weapon referred to as the CFG (cluster fire gun). This weapon discharged short bursts of brittle ordnance that shatter on impact, a great tool for attacking soft targets such as tender Chimeran flesh. The CFG has an alt-fire mode, a Resistance staple. The manner in which it’s deployed, however, is PS Vita-only. A quick tap of the screen sets crosshairs on multiple enemies. Press fire, and they all fall in rapid succession.

This touch alt-fire method extended to the more familiar Carbine rifle. To fire off the underbarrel grenade launcher, merely touch in the direction you want to lob one, and off it goes in a fragmentational ‘splosion. Tossing a grenade works in similar fashion: When you touch the screen, an icon appears above your finger so you can see how long you’re cooking the grenade, then a “throwing” motion arcs them on their way.

The touch-sensitive screen also takes on the melee duties. An icon of a fireman’s axe (naturally) resides on-screen, just next to the Square button. Slide your thumb over when a Chimera closes in too close, and it’ll quickly be reduced to a pile of extraterrestrial giblets. Demo driver Frank Simon landed a one-hit stealth kill on an unsuspecting grunt as well.

The developers also demonstrated the weapon wheel, a feature near and dear to any Resistance fan’s heart. You can swap guns as you’re used to on the console games, or just tap the rifle you’re looking for directly on-screen.

It might sound like there’s a lot of touchscreen interaction in the game, but Nihilistic is being selective with its implementation. Heubner says they’ll only take advantage of “as many features of the PS Vita that make sense” for Burning Skies. Touch is used to keep you in the action and out of the menus.

The final new-to-Resistance feature is a first-person cover system, not unlike that found in the Killzone series. If you’re crouching behind certain structures, you’ll automatically go into cover. You’ve got the optional of tilting the Vita to see over or around cover, or you can just aim down the sights the old-fashioned way with L1. If you stand up or back away, you’re out of cover – no getting stuck.

It should be said that Resistance: Burning Skies is an attractive shooter. “We don’t have to compromise on the visual side just because it’s a mobile platform,” said Heubner. “It’s got all the special effects you’d expect on a PS3 game. And the game demo was presented seamlessly from beginning to end – not a loading screen to be found.

Back to the demo. Now equipped with a minigun, Riley ventured deep into the Ellis Island underground facility where human scientists labor to reverse engineer the Chimeran weapons. Fortunately, they left an an ammo upgrade for the minigun, which made it even more deadly.

And you’ll need all the firepower you can muster, because Resistance: Burning Skies throws a lot at you. The devs showed off the horsepower of Vita by filling a huge room with hordes of Chimeran attackers of multiple varieties. After raining liquid hot death on the enemies (and their reinforcements), the real threat reveals itself: a huge Chimera that loomed three times larger than most you’ve seen… and apparently, it’s just a mini-boss.

The demo ended there, but it not before making it clear that Resistance: Burning Skies is well on its way to delivering on the promise of becoming the first proper portable first-person shooter.

#resistance Of all the games we've seen so far destined for the new PlayStation Vita, none epitomise the gulf between Sony's last handheld and its next one like Resistance. More »

As I sat through the Sony press conference here in Cologne, Germany, live-blogging the minutiae of the hour-long presentation, a few games that stuck out to me during an otherwise bland showing. One of those games was Resistance: Burning Skies...

Sony today detailed the Resistance Vita title previously announced for the handheld...