Planned to come out of Early Access in the first months of 2017, Ballistic Overkill is a fast-paced online FPS. The player has 7 classes to choose from and go deep into their particular gameplay styles to master each one, learn their skills, unlock new weapons and customize their appearance. With influences from Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty and some touches from Overwatch, the gameplay is very much arcade-oriented, each soldier complementing each other’s skills and at the same time they are all fully capable of delivering insane frags on the battlefield. Without wimpy support classes, in Ballistic Overkill everyone is a killer!
The challenge of converting a Free-to-Play browser game to a premium model for PC/Mac/Linux platforms.
The story of Ballistic Overkill development is not typical. Originally known as a popular F2P browser game, the developer Aquiris Game Studio identified that the game was more suitable for a premium experience on Steam, with the focus on a fair and balanced gameplay without any in-game microtransactions. The process has taken 20 months of constant work (14 of them in Early Access). Having attracted more than 5 million players while it was on Facebook, its Free to Play past has been a double-edged sword for the developer, having to educate old players into what makes a premium version of their favorite game worth buying. As the game progressed, things turned out better and better for the project, as can be seen in many of our Steam user reviews:
“Great game, I already played when it was free on the browser but now they improved it a lot, gameplay, graphics, etc. But what I love the most is that you unlock the weapons as you progress and it’s not necessary to pay real money to buy a better one.” rick.dias.prates
“I haven’t been this happy with a shooter since the glory days of COD:MW and COD:MW2”.tgm
“Didn’t think I could enjoy a shooter that much. Gameplay is fast paced and yet tactical with all the various classes and equipment sets. Also I really dig the art style and visuals overall.” Micha.
“Recent cases as Super Mario Run proved it is dangerous to mix premium games and F2P audiences. With Ballistic Overkill we can only confirm that Free to Play players may have a hard time understanding the motivations and advantages of turning their beloved Free-to-Play game into a premium experience. This is a fully skill-based game and less suitable for a Free-to-Play business model. It works better as an experience where all the players have access to the same gear and everything is precisely balanced.” – Lucas Zanenga, Game Designer.
This transition has been possible thanks to a policy of continuous updates and keeping close contact with a small but really caring community of gamers from the Free to Play model. They come from all over the world to play and give us feedback on the game, joining us on our forums, Twitter and Facebo
“It’s been a long way since we launched in October 2015 and Jim Sterling played our game getting Ballistically Overkilled to nowadays that we’ve sold over 20K copies in Early Access and have between 78-83% positive reviews on Steam, counting with really great video reviews by the youtuber community.” – Jean Martins, Community Manager.
Ballistic Overkill takes place in 2036, a new form of energy has been discovered, so clean, safe and abundant that it changed the course of civilization. The governments formed an alliance and are claiming the monopoly over it, named MFA. But other private parties, mainly from the oil industry, do not agree with these terms. So they hired an unidentified mercenary force, known as Smokes, with the intention of bringing back the new energy source to the whole population.
Aquiris Game Studio is a company based in Porto Alegre, Brazil. With 10 years of history and a team of 60 people, we have been creating games for a broad range of platforms, from browser to PC and mobile. Our big focus since the very beginning has been on delivering the best artistic, technical and gameplay quality to our players, in partnership with our publishing partners. With Horizon Chase and Ballistic Overkill, the studio is taking a step further into the world of self-publishing. We want to offer games that really translate our passion for high quality and fun experiences.
