RWBY: Grimm Eclipse

RWBY: Grimm Eclipse is an official RWBY video game under development by Rooster Teeth, originally created by independent developer Jordan Scott. The game is targeting release on multiple platforms, but is currently only available on PC.

A demo version was independently released by Scott on April 1st, 2014, but is no longer available for download. A pre-alpha was also made available for Rooster Teeth Sponsors. The game was later made playable to the public for attendees of RTX 2015. A beta for Rooster Teeth sponsors was also made available in November 2015.

The game was released to the public on Steam Early Access on December 1st, 2015.

Plot
The game features its own unique plot that will be canon within the show's continuity, and will introduce a new villain unique to the game's storyline. Series writers Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross are collaborating with the game development team on the story.

In the first level of the game, Peter Port guides Team RWBY through a mission to the Emerald Forest, where there have been issues with the security network. Along the way, they fight off hordes of Grimm, defending the security network control centers as Port fixes them.

The team discovers that the network was reprogrammed by an unknown party. They also find mysterious cages for capturing Grimm, created by the now defunct Merlot Industries, an old research and development corporation that had its primary facility at the ill-fated settlement of Mountain Glenn.

Team RWBY returns to Mountain Glenn to investigate the abandoned facility of Merlot Industries, this time guided by Bartholomew Oobleck. There, they fight through more Grimm before an enormous explosion causes the building to collapse around them. The team falls into the subterranean ruins of the city, which they find have been booby-trapped with a large bomb. Team RWBY manage to contain the explosion by dropping the bomb down a large chasm. They also encounter mysterious mutant Grimm Creeps, which detonate explosively when they get close.

The Steam Early Access release ends at this point in the storyline. In upcoming content, Team RWBY will visit Forever Fall as well as some previously unseen locations.

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Characters

 * Ruby Rose
 * Weiss Schnee
 * Blake Belladonna
 * Yang Xiao Long
 * Peter Port
 * Bartholomew Oobleck

Locations

 * Emerald Forest
 * Forever Fall
 * Mountain Glenn
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Enemies

 * Grimm
 * Creep
 * Boarbatusk
 * Beowolf
 * Ursa
 * Mutant Creep
 * }

Gameplay
Grimm Eclipse is a co-operative survival-based action role-playing game. Scott cites the games Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy, and Mystic Heroes as inspirations for the gameplay mechanics of Grimm Eclipse. The official website also names Dynasty Warriors and Left 4 Dead as influences. The official player guide refers to the game as a "mission-based character action game".

Players work co-operatively to progress through missions. The difficulty of the game scales with the number of players currently in the game, and adjusts on-the-fly when players leave or join. Each mission has a number of different sections and objectives, which include clearing an area of enemies, defending an area from waves of enemies, generator defense, and escorting other players as they complete a certain task.

All four members of Team RWBY – Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long – are playable in the game. The number of players using a certain character is not limited, and up to four players can choose the same character in a party. Players have melee and ranged attacks, as well as a number of unlockable special attacks. The ability to perform special moves must be earned by performing combos with regular attacks. Combos of 12 hits in quick succession give the players special 'pips', which can then be used to perform special abilities.

Additional attacks and abilities, such as quick revive and faster health regeneration, can be unlocked as players gain experience points and complete challenges. Players earn experience by defeating enemies, reviving allies and finding artifacts, which are scattered throughout the game area. Each of the four playable characters has a unique set of moves and abilities which can be unlocked as the player progresses through the game, divided into different skill trees so players can use characters in different ways.

Enemy types in the game include different creatures of Grimm, which each have unique behaviors, stats and methods of attack. For example, Boarbatusks have a spinning charge attack, whilst Ursai have strong defense. There are different tiers within each species of Grimm, with more powerful enemies being visually distinguished by having more armor. The most powerful of each type of Grimm is referred to as an Alpha. Enemies have health bars, indicating to players how much health they have left.

The game's health system is named after Aura. Aura is depleted by taking successive hits from enemies, but regenerates if players are not hit for a certain amount of time. If a player's Aura is depleted, they have a small number of hits that they can survive before they are downed. Downed players have the option of being revived by other players or waiting up to almost a minute to respawn.

Independent Development
RWBY: Grim Eclipse was originally a fan-game by Jordan Scott, built in the Unity engine over a period of around 5 months. Jordan independently re-created all the assets from the show, modelling and texturing environments, character models and weapons. A demo version was released on April 1st, 2014 (the 11th anniversary of the founding of Rooster Teeth) and quickly received widespread recognition from other fans. Upon its release, Scott stated that no further development would be made on the game as he intended to follow original concepts out of necessity.

In the independently released version, the player controls Ruby Rose as she fights Beowolves in a setting similar to the "Red" Trailer. The objective of the game is simply to survive for as long as possible against indefinitely respawning enemy waves. Other gameplay elements, such as items and stats, are also present in the user interface, but are not functional in the released version.

With Rooster Teeth
Less than 24 hours after the public release of the game, Scott was contacted by Monty Oum and brought into discussions to develop the game for Rooster Teeth. On July 4th, 2014 during the RTX 2014 RWBY Panel, it was announced that the game was picked up by the company to be made into an official game. The game was shown off with more polished graphics, a new heads up display, and a teaser for another playable character: Yang Xiao Long.

With respect to the game, Rooster Teeth CEO Matt Hullum has stated that, "RWBY is a natural choice for us to focus on for our first in-house produced video game. Fans can expect that we will bring the same level of originality in action, comedy and design to the video game that has made the RWBY animated series such a hit. We're excited about expanding the RWBY universe, and also excited that this is a project that originated as a homegrown community endeavor".

On December 25th, 2014, a pre-alpha version was released to Sponsors in order to showcase the updated animation and mechanics. It was made available only until shortly after New Year. The pre-alpha version included updated gameplay elements, environments and assets, as well as a new enemy: a stronger version of the Beowolf that was white in color.

On April 1st, 2015, Rooster Teeth's 12th anniversary, and exactly one year after the initial independent release of the game, several updates were added to the Sponsors-only pre-alpha. The additions included a co-operative multiplayer element for up to 4 players, with players controlling re-colored versions of Ruby, corresponding to her team colors of red, white, black and yellow.

The update included new enemies and "a variety of tweaks to gameplay and the environment". These updates were broadcast in a journal by Gray G. Haddock on the Rooster Teeth website, in which it was also announced that a new developer, Michael Hadwin, had joined the team.

The pre-alpha versions included the mission "Extermination", in which players must progress through several different playable zones by defeating enemies in the area. Once all areas have been cleared of enemies, players are ranked on their performance from A, B, C, D, and F. In another gametype, players must cooperate to protect a generator and substation from waves of Grimm.

Team Expansion


At RTX 2015, the game was playable on the show floor, with a new game mode where up to four players must protect an objective. At the showcase during the RWBY Panel on August 7th, 2015, all four members of Team RWBY were revealed to be playable, each with their own unique set of moves in a co-operative multiplayer mode.

In an interview, it was announced that the game is targeting a holiday 2015 release on Steam, but may release on other platforms depending on the level of success. More content, such as more playable characters, potentially including Team JNPR, might also be added as downloadable content.

Abe Robertson, Casey Donnellan and Brian Reilly also joined the team in order to handle other sectors of development in support of Scott, who will continue to focus primarily on gameplay. The team commented that they were given the creative freedom to add new elements that might later appear in the show, and expressed their desire to create an original type of Grimm for the game. The team also hosted a panel on Independent Game Development at RTX 2015.

On October 15th, 2015, the game was added to Steam Greenlight for the public to pledge support for. An official website was also unveiled alongside a new trailer, featuring previously unseen content. The game quickly passed the Greenlight stage in a little over 48 hours.

Grimm Eclipse was also played by numerous members of the RWBY crew on Rooster Teeth's Extra Life 2015 Live Stream. An open Beta was announced for Rooster Teeth Sponsors in November 2015. New features were shown off by the game development team during the livestream and were available in the beta. It was also revealed that series writers Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross were cooperating with the game crew on the game's storyline.

Steam Early Access
On December 1st, 2015 the game was released to the public for the first time on Steam Early Access. The first Early Access release included the first four levels of the game, which followed a storyline that returned players to locations seen in the series, such as the Emerald Forest and Mountain Glenn. All four members of Team RWBY are playable in the released version, each with unique move sets and attacks.

New voice work by Lindsay Jones, Kara Eberle, Barbara Dunkelman, Ryan Haywood and Joel Heyman was also recorded for the game. The Early Access release featured placeholder voiceover for Blake, as Arryn Zech had yet to record her lines. The Grimm Eclipse Early Access release was one of the top selling games on Steam shortly after its release.



On February 6th, 2016, the game development team announced a series of major updates scheduled for the first half of 2016, with new features including adjustments to the gameplay mechanics (including camera movement and increased combat "depth"), offline singleplayer as well as general optimization. Upcoming content includes new levels, split into two new campaigns, as well as new enemies and an entirely new gametype, Horde Mode. Release for Mac was also announced for 2016.

The first of these updates, Update #3, was released on March 9th, 2016 on an opt-in basis. The update included combat improvements, adding heavy attacks for melee and ranged combat, as well as counters and stuns. Enemy AI behaviour is also altered, with enemies guarding when repeatedly attacked, encouraging players to adapt by using heavy attacks. Heavy attacks are more powerful than normal attacks, but take time to charge. Counters must be timed within a certain window just before an enemy attacks, but when successfully performed will leave enemies stunned and vulnerable to follow-up combos and heavy attacks.

The 3 special moves that each character currently has have been reworked and improved. Each character's final skill is replaced by an "Ultimate", which are more powerful than the old special attacks, but take longer to earn, each with their own microprogression options. One special attack has been reworked into part of the new team attack system, which is also upgradable. Team attacks are contextual and based on certain factors, with one player setting up the conditions for another player to use a special attack to finish off a stunned enemy, encouraging teamwork.

New controller schemes were added to support the new heavy attacks, counters, and altered ranged attacks. One controller scheme was included in the launch of the update, with more to be included in future updates. The update also included camera improvements, including an explore camera that pulls in for a closer view of characters when out of combat, and a battle camera which offers a wider field of view when enemies are near. Refined camera controls were also added, allowing players to center the camera to the direction their character is facing.

Trivia

 * Grimm Eclipse was originally named RWBY: Grim Eclipse, but was renamed some time after being picked up by Rooster Teeth, likely to match the canonical spelling of Grimm.
 * Grimm Eclipse was one of the games played during Rooster Teeth's 8-Bit Salute Livestream event on May 17th, 2014, months before it was officially announced as being picked up by the company.
 * Grimm Eclipse was played by Rooster Teeth's gaming channel Achievement Hunter in a Let's Play. Three of the four who played the game, Lindsay Jones, Michael Jones and Ryan Haywood, also have voice roles in the game, though Michael Jones' character, Sun Wukong, has yet to appear.
 * Grimm Eclipse has been played on numerous occasions by other Rooster Teeth staff and RWBY voice actors on live streamed events, including the Rooster Teeth Extra Life 24 hour stream and the RWBY Volume 3 mid-season live stream. The game was also played live at RTX Australia.
 * The game was also played by former Achievement Hunter Ray Narvaez, Jr. during a live stream on Twitch.tv.

Links

 * Demo Release Trailer
 * Jordan Scott's YouTube Channel
 * Official Website
 * RWBY: Grimm Eclipse on Steam
 * RWBY: Grimm Eclipse Wiki