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RWBY: Grimm Eclipse
RWBY Grimm Eclipse Art
Statistics
Publisher

Rooster Teeth

Developer
Platforms

PC, PS4, XB1

Release Date
  • April 1st, 2014 (Fan-Made)
  • December 25th, 2014 (Pre-Alpha)
  • December 1st, 2015 (Steam Early Access)[1]
  • July 5th, 2016 (Full Release)[2]
  • January 17th, 2017 (Console)[3]
Genre

Hack and Slash

RWBY: Grimm Eclipse is the official video game adaptation of Rooster Teeth Production's ongoing web-series: RWBY.

It started off only available on PC, as the fan-made version, released on April 1st, 2014 by Jordan Scott. By the time Early Access swung around, it was still only available on PC, this time through Steam. It was fully released on July 5th, 2016, and was ported to consoles 6 months later, on January 17th 2017.

Currently, RWBY: Grimm Eclipse has three game modes: Campaign, Horde Mode, and Grimm Gauntlet.

Summary[]

Plot[]

The game features its own unique plot that will be canon within the main 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.[4]

The storyline of the game takes place between RWBY Volume 2 and Volume 3.[5] In the first level of the game, Peter Port guides the player(s) 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 player(s) discovers that the network was reprogrammed by an unknown party. They also find mysterious cages used 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.

The player(s) head 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. The player(s) manage to contain the explosion by dropping the bomb down a large chasm. They also encounter mysterious Mutant Creeps, which detonate explosively when they get close.

The player(s) then visits Forever Fall to continue investigating the trail left behind by Merlot Industries. There, they discover more disturbing evidence, such as a Grimm holding facility and more mutated Grimm, including new Mutant Beowolves. At the end of the trail, the player(s) attempts to infiltrate a Merlot Industries ship coming into dock by hiding behind the cover of shipping containers, but get trapped when the container they're hiding in is loaded onto the departing ship.

When the ship stops, the player(s) exit the container to find themselves on an unknown, but presumable Merlot's Island. Unfortunately, the signal from their scroll(s) is not strong enough to communicate with Dr. Oobleck, so they decide to visit communication towers in an attempt to strengthen the signal. As the player(s) explore the island, they find Androids defending it as well as normal and mutant Grimm. After they manage to fully restore contact, Dr. Merlot hijacks the conversation to introduce himself. Ozpin takes over from Dr. Oobleck, and begins conversing with his previous acquaintance.

As the player(s) head onto the other side of the island, which has a very different atmosphere, they find Dr. Merlot harvesting some kind of blue liquid for his experiments. They shut off the pipes sending the substance further into the island as they travel, and Ozpin and Dr. Merlot discuss Dr. Merlot's experimentation on Grimm, and the fall of Mountain Glenn. Ozpin claims Dr. Merlot had a part in the disaster, and Dr. Merlot claims he needed to attract more Grimm for his experiments, as Merlot Industries' research was critical in the advancement of artificial intelligence and genetics.

After following the pipelines along the island, the player(s) eventually make it to Merlot's Laboratory, which is full of both kinds of Grimm, and more Androids. The players are given a tour by Dr. Merlot as they attempt to find a way to stop his operation, and destroy more of the mysterious substance that Dr. Merlot calls a serum as they go. After sending Ozpin details of the laboratory, the players head to the center of Dr. Merlot's operation, destroying the power facility and the last of the serum, before being put to a test by Dr. Merlot that culminates in fighting a giant, Mutant Deathstalker. After defeating it, Dr. Merlot sets his laboratory to self destruct, while the player(s) escape in a ship sent by Ozpin.

Characters[]

Locations[]

Enemies[]

Development[]

Ge fangame trailer

Screenshot from the trailer for the original fan game

The game was originally created as a fan-game by Jordan Scott over a period of approximately 5 months. 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.

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.[9] 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."[10]

Ge pre-alpha white beowolf
April 2015 update preview

Teaser image from the April 2015 update.

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 Haddock on the Rooster Teeth website, in which it was also announced that a new developer, Michael Hadwin, had joined the team.[11]

Arryn grimm eclipse rtx2015

Arryn Zech playing as Blake at RTX 2015

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 could've released on other platforms depending on the level of success. More content, such as more playable characters, potentially including Team JNPR, were considered as possible downloadable content.[12]

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.[12]

The game was brought out of early access on July 5th 2016, and has continued to make updates and release patches since. The JNPR DLC with the free Horde Mode update was released on October 13th 2016.

RWBY: Grimm Eclipse has also been ported over to console as of January 17th 2016.

The developers, on Steam, on February 23rd 2016 announced new DLC packs - costume packs to make the playable characters dressed in either their Beacon uniform, or their prom outfits.[13] They were released on March 10th for PC.[14]

Gameplay[]

Early Access[]

Grimm Eclipse is a 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.

GEcontrols

Game controls.

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.

Rooster Teeth announced through their informational video game show The Know that in the full version of the game, the rest of Team RWBY would be playable as well, and that co-operative multiplayer was a focus. Each character will have a unique set of moves and abilities that will be put at the disposal of the player.[10] Subsequent pre-alpha development builds available to sponsors introduced additional features, including functional co-operative multi-player elements.

The official player guide refers to the game as a "mission-based character action game."[15] In the mission "Extermination," 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.

Further development completely reworked this, having these levels become the base for the story-driven missions of what is now Campaign mode. During Early Access, the rest of Team RWBY was added, along with a combat update, 2 more campaign levels set in Forever Fall, new enemies, character taunts and visual and sound effect updates.

Full Release[]

In the full release version, players can now play as more than just Ruby. They can play in lobbies of up to four players, playing any characters in any combination: it can either be a full team RWBY, or a team entirely consisting of Yangs. Full release completed the Campaign mode, which includes 10 Chapters, or levels, for players to explore, following the plot described above. Full release also included Hunter Ranks, a small emblem next to character level achieved by gameplay challenges and feats, to increase replayability, and 31 Achievements.

Combat has been heavily fleshed out, making most of the old Special abilities now easier to access in gameplay, and now include the ability to perform Team Attacks, Counters, Ultimates and perform various ranged manoeuvres. The idea of Ranged combos were introduced, with the old Ranged Special attack (for example, Dust Blast) being performed as the third shot of a Ranged combos. Team Attacks were also introduced, and another Special ability (for example, Reap) was moved to the Team Attack execute for each character. The final of the 3 Special Abilities (for example, Crescendo) is now called the Ultimate ability, which is very similar to how the early-access Special abilities functioned, having to build up a meter with other attacks and completing hitstreaks.

20170220180533 1

Pyrrha's extended combo

Combat is now involves strings of melee attacks, Light attacks (L) and Heavy attacks (H), which are the foundation towards more powerful Team Attacks and Ultimates. Using a Heavy attack finishes the string with a kind of finishing move. For example, Ruby's LLH ends in her attempting to behead the Grimm she's attacking by holding Crescent Rose sideways and firing a heavy shot, while Weiss' LLH ends in her freezing all nearby enemies by jumping into the air and throwing ice dust below her.

This is combined with a brand new level up system, where players can build their favourite character in different ways: for example, a ranged Yang build, or a crowd control Blake build. Your level is no longer reset every match, keeping the amount of Skill Points you have, but you can now respec them every Chapter or Match to try out new builds. The highest level a character can be is 10.

Players no longer get ranked on their performance, and instead aggregate score over their current play session. Players receive points for teamwork, kills and assists, which feed into their overall score. Deaths are also tracked, too.

A patch on the 23rd of July, 2016 added a difficulty setting for single player mode, Normal, Hard, Legendary, and Eclipse, each adding an extra multiplier of Grimm, i.e. Legendary is 3x the Grimm of Normal difficulty. This patch also added more checkpoints to the game, and increased the difficulty of the final boss fight, along with some UI improvements and bug fixes.

On the 21st of October, 2016, another patch was added to fix several issues with Horde Mode and JNPR, most notably changing when a host disconnects in horde mode to reset just the wave, not the entire run.

Steam trading cards, along with associated badges, backgrounds and emoticons, were implemented on the 31st of July.

Downloadable Content[]

The first DLC was released on October 13th, 2016. This DLC included Horde Mode for free, and JNPR as playable characters for purchase. This update also included release for Mac, 6 achievements tied to JNPR, localisations in 8 new languages, and the song "Lusus Naturae", Merlot's theme. [16]

The second DLC was released on March 10th, 2017 and includes purchasable Dance and Uniform costume packs for both Team RWBY and Team JNPR. [14]

More DLC was released on October 18th, 2018 for PC, and included two new maps for Horde Mode and purchasable Pajama and Timeskip costume packs for both Team RWBY and Team JNPR. [17]

On January 18th, 2019, Grimm Gauntlet mode was released for PC and Console. Console also received the previous update of two new Horde Mode maps and the costume packs.[18]

Trivia[]

  • There are mods available. On PC, a user named gvk created a mod pack free to download and use. It supports retextures, new models, sound packs, level packs, and also features new game modes like survival, dust league and artifact hunt. It also has betas such as a beta 8 player mod, which allows up to 8 players in a match. Lots of chat commands are available too, such as spawn player, low gravity, and spawn Grimm. To learn more about RWBY GE's mods, see here. For retextures and other community made content, check the RWBY:GE mod forum in the steam community.
  • RWBY: Grimm Eclipse has been played by members of Roosterteeth for video content several times.
    • Achievement Hunter has played it.[19]
    • The main VAs, various members of CRWBY and the dev team have played it multiple times for Extra Life.
    • The main VAs have played it for RT Life.[20]
    • It also has been streamed at various conventions [21] and also in house.[22]
  • There is a Free Play episode based on this game. [23]
  • There is an active speedrun community for this game. To check out any% runs, no skip runs, and more, click this link.

Image Gallery[]

Full Release[]

References[]

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