Our testers have just been given access to the latest version of the Madness: Project Nexus Closed Beta (v1.13.a), which means we're now counting down toward only a couple of checkpoints before full release of the game! The new update includes a ton of balancing fixes and cleanup for Story Campaign, but primarily focuses on the new Arena Combat game mode. Arena was completely gutted and rebuilt from the ground up, and as it stands is mostly complete and only lacks the inclusion of four more stages, which are already nearly done. Barring setbacks, expect that update to reach closed beta in two weeks. After that, we move onto final cleanup before releasing the game to the public. In addition to cleaning up endless bugs, tightening up CPU/GPU performance, and balancing gameplay, the final cleanup portion of development is also going to include a number of features we've put off until the very end: * A tutorial stage that teaches basic to advance combat moves. * Short, playable cutscenes between Story Campaign sectors that explore the history of Project Nexus. * Multiplayer for Arena mode. * Introductory video for Story Campaign * Arena Hireling personalities and base interactions * Face Picker for Arena Combat * Story Campaign squadmate swapper * Make The Playground (aka Interactive Mode) playable I'm positive there are more, but these are the big ones. We hope to have all of this content in before March, leaving us a solid month of focused testing before we reassess and determine where we are on a final release date. There are other things to be done outside of game development (such as advertising and promotional content) that won't be discussed in this post, which will further occupy us. We're hopeful for this timeline though, and hope to hit you guys with a new set of release notes in two weeks! -Swain