Xonotic 0.8 Release

Posted by Antibody on January 16, 2015

Today we are very excited to give you the next iteration of Xonotic, the free and fast arena shooter. Yep, you guessed it: Xonotic 0.8.0 is out! This version is the culmination of months of effort from many individuals from across the globe. It contains improvements in just about all visible aspects of the game and onto the web. There are new menu screens, gameplay features, and a much-anticipated new weapon: the Arc! We’re excited for the what the future holds, and we hope to see you out on the servers soon. Happy fragging!

Download information:

Download via torrent
Download via HTTP
MD5: bc368e116a2502362e1d4f07d8f8efab
Package size: 953MB

Already have Xonotic on your machine? There’s no need to download the game again to get into the action. Use the following steps to upgrade your client to the 0.8.0 release:

  1. Navigate to your Xonotic installation folder
  2. Navigate to the misc/tools/rsync-updater folder
  3. Execute the update-to-release.sh (for Linux or Mac) or update-to-release.bat (for Windows) and wait for it to complete
  4. Profit. You’re done!

Feature Highlights

Here are some features to get you excited while you wait:

We have three new maps for the “Capture The Flag” game mode. Catharsis, by Justin, is an indoor map with a central, violent focal point. Plus, it has crystals! Implosion, by MintOX, is a space floater with fantastic jump pads for a lot of midair fun. It also has a perilous lower infrastructure for you risky cappers out there. Vorix, by packer, is an open-air indoor arena with beautifully designed corridors. Watch out for its lava pits though!

Archer has been hard at work making immersive sounds for the game. His latest track is called X-Force, which can be found on Implosion. Nice!

Melanosuchus created a wonderful way to add variety to your server: a game type vote screen! This feature allows server administrators to allow their players to choose the game mode used in the next map. It is shown before the map vote screen.

The menu system went through some major updates. It now sports a tiered server browser that categorizes the available servers so you can choose the right one for you. Player statistics are also integrated. Accessible via the “profile” tab, you can now view your most vital statistics from XonStat without having to open a web browser. Lots of other menu options have moved to the forefront as well. All of these changes are to help you configure Xonotic to your taste easily.

All of our builds have switched to using the latest-and-greatest major version of the SDL: version 2.0. This version brings with it several performance improvements and a ton of new capabilities.

A brand new weapon concept: the Arc! Similar to lightning guns in other games, the Arc is a hitscan weapon with medium range. It shoots a bendable beam of electricity as its primary fire and has a burst mode as its secondary fire. It has a limited capacity and thus overheats after too much constant use, so administer your damage with care! The Arc is available to server administrators who choose to enable it. It will take its place as a Xonotic core weapon in the next release.

The physics and weapon balance have both been tweaked after a long round of feedback from the community. Many settings were taken from sessions on the “Reversion cup” servers, and a great many of games were had in the process! The weapon balance is the first step in a large re-tooling of the weapon system. Look for more updates coming soon.

This release introduces monsters! We have five different types of monsters for you to frag: Zombie, Wyvern, Mage, Spider and Shambler. Mario created a new game mode called “Invasion” that uses these monsters. In this mode the player must fight off a swarm of the aforementioned monsters within a small arena to win.

New powerup-like items called buffs can now spawn on maps if enabled. They can replace the existing powerups or spawn in random locations. Buffs give players special powers when picked up, and they last until the player is fragged. Adding these to servers is sure to turn up thier craziness level to 11!

Join the discussion about Xonotic 0.8.

Xonotic is a fast paced first person shooter where crisp movement, nuanced weapons, and in-your-face action combine to create addictive arena-style gameplay.
Xonotic is free to play and modify under the copyleft GPLv3+ license. Download it today!

Previous post:
Next post: