The next OrbusVR: Reborn Beta test will begin this Friday, February 22nd. We've got a whole bunch of new content and features coming for you to test, here's a preview of a few more!

Dungeon 2: The Sewers

The second dungeon that will be introduced in Reborn is The Sewers. Featuring two new and unique bosses as well as an interactive lever mechanic, this dungeon's design will continue to show our new approach to combat in the form of highly visual challenges which involve the entire group.

Diving deep into the ancient sewers which lie below Highsteppe, you'll face creatures which have long dwelled there and mutated to their surroundings. The first fight against a Rat King will force you to split up your party to guard key positions in their lair; protect these posts and keep the Rat King's minions from approaching them or you will have a hard time winning this fight!

The second fight will bring you face to face with the giant Slime Creature. It's a fight that will challenge your entire party as you must position the boss in various locations around the room, while at the same time dealing with adds, avoiding the boss's "lock on" mechanic, and dodging incoming projectiles and explosions on the ground throughout the fight.

Both the first dungeon we introduced and this second dungeon are "Level 10" dungeons. Although they are matched content which will automatically adjust based on the level of your party members, we are designing the mechanics and the fight complexity generally assuming a Level 10 group of players. The next two dungeons that will be introduced for the next Beta test will be Level 20 dungeons, and then finally we will also re-introduce the Shard Dungeon system (with some new mechanics and challenges) for Level 30 groups.

Titles

In the original OrbusVR, our primary "achievement" slot on the character was the cape, which provided a nice way for you to show off your accomplishments in the game. We'll be continuing that trend in OrbusVR: Reborn, but we'll also be introducing the Titles system, which allows you to earn and discover titles which become a part of your name. For example, you can become "Champion Orrbain", to signify your ranking in the new PvP Honor Ranks, or you might discover "Dragonfriend Orrbain" by earning a very high reputation with Sicilus via the dragon racing activities.

Once a title is unlocked, you can choose to switch to it at any time via your Character Equipment screen, so feel free to equip whatever title best matches what you're doing or what you want to show off. (Note that the PvP Honor Rank title is "dynamic", so it will always just show your current rank -- if you fall from Champion down to Recruit, you can no longer call yourself a Champion after all!)

In OrbusVR: Reborn, you'll be able to unlock both capes and titles through a whole new range of activities. There will be lore quests, reputation rewards, achievements, and more which allow you to work toward earning these interesting ways to customize your character.

Character Re-Customization

We've also got a new feature that should make many of you happy -- the ability to re-customize your character! When a character has a "refresh" available, you will see a new button on the Character Select screen which allows you to go through the same process of re-customizing your character that you do when making a new one, changing the face shape, body shape, hair, eyes, etc. After you're done, these changes will be saved to your existing character so you can totally change your look. As part of this process, you can also change your character's name to something new and unique.

Upon the launch of Reborn, all existing characters that come over from the current game will receive a complimentary refresh that will be available to use at your leisure, so you can take advantage of all the new character customization features at that time. You'll also be able to purchase additional refreshes for your characters on the in-game store.

In addition to that, we've updated the character select screen so you can now use the laser pointer to select the various customization options instead of needing to grab and throw them onto the character (although you can still do that as well if you want to!)

A Note on the Beta Process

Beta 4 (which is the one beginning this Friday, February 22nd) will be the last Beta test before we wipe existing Beta characters. For Beta 5 (beginning March 25th), we want the beta to be as close as possible to how the game will work when Reborn actually launches. Therefore, we will wipe all existing Beta characters, and import all characters from OrbusVR into Reborn so you can see exactly how your character's data will carry forward and we can make sure that process works smoothly (along with getting the Character Re-Customization for each character so you can change the appearance or name if you so choose). Note that anything you do in the Beta will not affect your actual character, and we will "wipe" all of these imported characters from the Beta server once Reborn launches officially. So it's still a Beta character, it's just one that starts with your existing equipment, inventory, name, levels, etc.

With the addition of the Scoundrel class, over 100 missions across 7 activity types, the third enemy race (the Scavs), the remaining overworld Public Events, the titles system, the Auction House, many tutorial images, the finalization of the zone layout, and more, Beta 4 is a very complete picture of the overall structure of Reborn. Beta 5 will see classes become balanced, the addition of some additional content (such as additional dungeons) as well as tweaks to existing classes, talents and supers for the new classes, and things of that nature.

We'll see you in-game on Friday!