Our latest dev diary for upcoming turn-based mercenary manager Jagged Alliance 3 outlines some interesting features. The first is his mod support. This is especially important given the way mod authors have kept Jagged Alliance 2 alive. Here is our own Evan Lahti praising his 1.13 mod. “We’re beefing up what’s out there, increasing max resolution, adding hundreds of new weapons, including satisfying super items like ghillie suits and depleted uranium ammunition, reconfiguring hotkeys, and changing the AI.” Enemies will then be able to flank better, take cover more often, climb roofs, and take advantage of suppressive fire. ”
Jagged Alliance 3 will receive mod support as part of a post-launch update. development diary “Modders will now have access to the tools we use internally to create content such as mercenaries, weapons, items, quests, voice responses, and even add support for new languages.”
Modders can use JA3’s appearance editor tools to create new mercenaries and NPCs with existing assets, or export new models and animations created in Blender. “To create a fully fleshed out mercenary, modders will want to upload a 2D portrait (large or small) and create a voice response for the mercenary. I’m looking forward to seeing it!” A map editor and a quest editor will also be added in another update.
Another feature detailed in this post is cooperative multiplayer. Two players can experience the campaign together, either by starting fresh or by one joining the other’s existing single-player her campaign. Haemimont Games explains: “There is no functional difference between saves made in co-op and single player, and the host can continue the game in single player if a buddy drops out. Both players can load either save. You can also (auto-save or manual save) be created during co-op gameplay and continue in single-player.”
Players must share the same mercenary pool and stay in the same sector, and interaction with NPCs is controlled by the player who initiated the conversation, but the other player can suggest interaction choices in the UI .
My first exposure to the Jagged Alliance was in the multiplayer mode of Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games. This mode also had a scenario and campaign editor. It’s nice to see a similar feature live in this sequel. This looks much more promising than other Jagged Alliance games in recent years.
Jagged Alliance 3 will be released in the following ways: vapor and Gog July 14th.
