I know I haven’t been actively talking but did I miss anything? Saw the post this a little while ago but I just brushed it aside cuz I thought it was just clickbait. But decided I looked at the app page on the Google Play store as well and it looks official so…
Nvm. I looked at discord and apparently and dont hold this as straight facts but, its a test client and the company is ran by a vg dev? Uh…
Yeah, there’s a lot of confusion about this – it’s very unclear WHAT it is … never heard of the company (“RoboWorld”) before.
This seems SUPER shady …
However, if SEMC are actually sanctioning this … I can’t imagine who would have thought it was a good idea to release a pre-alpha version of the game under a different name, from a different company, with no explanation …
Read some more comments and did some digging to see if they have any value or truth behind it but it seems Jean has something to do with Roboworld entertainment.
Why would their art director be releasing a pre-alpha version of the game?
According to their web site, this isn’t the game that RoboWorld has supposedly been working on
There’s nothing on RoboWorld’s web site or the Google Play store that indicates that the game is actually Catalyst Black and that the IP is owned by SEMC
Imo, this is either a really boneheaded move by SEMC or an unauthorized copy being released into the wild.
Im absolutely bamboozled by this whole situation. Hopefully its a clone that wasn’t supposed to be distributed, but then that would lead to why did another company release it
Just imagine. They got screwed over by Rouge. And now the lost all tools? Idk the right word, but all ingame content to use as teasers and sneak peak content now that its all on YT.
Huh, this certainly is really wild. The game went from being crumbs of information here and there to publicly accessible, albeit in an alpha state. Why or how their art director was able to publish the game is confusing, to say the least. I took a look at the discord and everyone is extremely confused about the whole situation as well.
Anyways, I’m gonna actually download Maskborne before it gets taken down or something to test it out firsthand. I can certainly try to provide my thoughts on it if anyone wants them.
I just played for a bit, testing out the various weapon types, messing around with different builds, etc. and I think the game is fairly solid. Not to extent of VG, imo, but still good. It’s mainly just dumb shooter fun, but I’m down for it and the join-and-leave anytime system works really well for it.
As for gameplay itself, there’s a pretty large amount of customization. There’s 7 different types of main weapons, with each having different playstyles and stat variety, both in terms of the weapon itself and your character, and 2 primal masks at the time being, as well as quite a few other equips that change your passive and active abilities, both in your human and primal forms, which I find a lot more interesting.
The game is pretty simple, for now at least, being “whoever gets the most points, wins”, with map objectives giving your either extra points or tactical advantages with the one that allows your team to spawn closer to the middle of the map. I would say it’s much better for quick fun here and there rather than a serious game, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I don’t think it’ll get the same love as VG from me, but I’m looking forward to the actual launch a fair bit more now.
With that being said, I can also provide some screenshots of the various equips and such and (laggy) gameplay footage if those are wanted as well.
Share away! We may get a takedown request from SEMC (though tbh they mostly ignore us here), but I’d certainly be interested to see what the game is like.
Yup, there indeed is one! The rest of weapon types are the generic assault rifle that was shown in the reveal, chainguns (that aren’t too different from SAW’s), rocket launchers, a burst rifle, shotguns, and a mortar that functions like Baron’s A ability.
Still kind of squishy and non-committal, but it’s potentially an intentional marketing strategy. Reminds me a bit of the dev stream teaser before Vox and Celeste’s release, with the main difference being everyone watching knew it was a teaser, and this is more “did SEMC really screw this up??”