The newest trailer for Faultline Games' Natural Selection 2: Combat, an upcoming standalone game born directly from a mod seen in Natural Selection 2, offers a look at the game's graphic Devour ability.

In past Natural Selection games, players could devour another player causing them to sit out of the game for up to 20 seconds while they were being digested or rescued by a teammate. As demonstrated in the gruesome trailer below, devoured players will be able to fight their way out of another player's digestion system.

Announced in April as an upcoming standalone release, Combat pits aliens against marines in first-person combat and removes the real-time strategy elements featured in Natural Selection games, essentially putting it more in the direct path of a typical FPS title. Players can level up their characters and unlock weapons, aliens, technology with skill points.

We missed this one last week, but news is slow today on account of North American public holiday weekend, so here you go.

Continuing its tradition of unorthodox game development, Natural Selection 2 developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment has permitted a community team to continue development of the multiplayer shooter while they focus on their next game, Subnautica (thanks Rock, Paper, Shotgun).

A detailed forum post by explains that a community dev team -- referring to themselves as NS2CDT -- consisting of 14 Natural Selection 2 players from around the world, will be working on forthcoming patches for the game.

It means that now with Unknown World’s blessing, we as a community can forge patch 266. We can hopefully start to incorporate the best the community has to offer, such as bug fixes and popular features...with many more ideas for the future!

For the everyday player, they can now rest easy knowing that NS2’s future developments will be in the trusted hands of a team of experienced NS2 players just like them, who only wish to see NS2 become bigger and better than ever before! There is potential for greatness, but we will have many hurdles to overcome along the way. While these things take time to implement and grow, we plan on being very open with what we are actively working on. Afterall, it is by the community, for the community!

Open game development seems like a great idea. Hopefuly they don't make a mess of it, so we can see more of this kind of thing.

Indie developer Unknown Worlds doesn't have the kind of resources that studios like Blizzard, Riot Games and Valve have leveraged to position their titles at the forefront of eSports, but their acclaimed first person shooter Natural Selection 2 does have a loyal fanbase that still wants to see it happen. So much so, that members of the NS2 community pitched an idea to run an international tournament for the game, and earned the developer's approval and support.

The Natural Selection 2 World Championship is being spearheaded by three prominent members of the NS2 community, and aims to commence as an international ladder "towards the end of 2013", and culminate in bringing the top four teams together for a showdown spectacular in Cologne Germany.

Unknown Worlds has reportedly committed to sponsoring the venue (planned as the ESLTV studio in Cologne) and front-page placement on popular video streaming service Twitch.tv, however in order to afford flights and accommodation for the representative players, the community organisers have turned to crowdfunding, looking to raise US$30,000 to cover the gap.

An excited blog from UWE spokesman Hugh Jeremy describes how the concept all game about, from the studio's perspective:

As a game developer, our primary business concern must always be to create great games. The emotion generated by our bond with the Natural Selection 2 player community must always be kept in check: If we aren’t careful, we will end up happily spending all our money – and more importantly, time – doing fun stuff like making Gorge plushies, throwing tournaments, and partying with fans at shows. The end result of such behaviour? We can’t create games to our full potential, and you all receive sub-par games.

But what do you do when players present you with a plan that is so stunningly ambitious, it reminds you of why you create games in the first place? A plan that is not about making games, but celebrating games. An expensive plan. A brilliant plan. An impossible plan. A plan that can bring players together not just across countries and communities, but across the entire planet. A plan for a Natural Selection 2 World Championship.

For more details, and to contribute to the hopeful Natural Selection 2 World Championship, head over to the official website, and check out the promotional clip below.

Continuing to make good on their commitment to expanding their game post-launch, developer Unknown Worlds has announced that a female space marine player model will be added to Natural Selection 2 for all players in late August/early September.

The game industry has a history of depicting female characters inappropriately. Often, they are stylised to such a degree that they become sexual objects: While their male comrades are clothed, armed and armoured to fight, the female character is notable for the lack of any clothing at all. When female characters are granted equal protection, that protection often ignores basic laws of physics in favour of offering titillating form.

This is not good enough, and it’s not a trope Unknown Worlds will entertain. Games are legitimate cultural influences, and game developers are responsible for the message they choose to convey to players. The Natural Selection 2 female marine is first and foremost, like her male colleague, a soldier. Her armour puts function before form, while adopting the science fiction, melee combat aligned design ques that have made the male marine so uniquely recognisable.

Like the current male marine in the game's human faction, three variants of the female character (standard, deluxe armour, and black armour) will be made available to players that have purchased the standard, deluxe and pre-order special edition tiers of the game.

Head over to the official website for a closer look.

Unknown Worlds has unveiled details (thanks Glynd) and a date for their upcoming free update "Gorgeous" to recently launched RTS FPS Natural Selection 2. The new update is set for launch sometime today and will feature various new content including Railguns, Gorge Tunnels, Descent and "quite a few fun surprises."

Gorgeous is free, and will be automatically delivered by Steam as Build 240. If you own NS2, you won’t have to do anything to get it. It includes Railguns, Gorge Tunnels, Descent, and quite a few fun surprises. Alongside the 13 previous ‘maintenance’ builds, Gorgeous is what the entire UWE team has been working on for the past two months.

Alongside the headline grabbing ‘big new guns and abilities,’ Gorgeous contains countless subtle improvements and fixes. The Spark Engine has a couple of new graphical tricks up its sleeve to make the game look better, and is running ever faster as it is tuned for more performance. Existing abilities and weapons have been tweaked for more fun and subtle balance changes made.

Unknown Worlds has also released a blog post outlining just how the developers prepare for patching a game, which you can check out over here for a good behind-the-scenes look. Gorgeous is free, and will be automatically delivered by Steam as Build 240. If you own NS2, you won’t have to do anything to get it.

Unknown Worlds Entertainment, the indie studio behind the well-received Natural Selection 2 (AusGamers 9/10), continues to build their indie cred, having released their in-house development environment Decoda to open source.

Decoda is an Integrated Development Environment custom-built by Unknown Worlds around the Lua scripting language that drives the game, and by releasing the source code of these tools, they're inviting the community to "download it, change it, modify it, improve it, and use it to create whatever they want"

Decoda has been licensed by large, well known publishers and income from this licensing was very important in funding Unknown Worlds throughout the development of NS2. After the sales success of NS2, we have the opportunity to reassess our business model and give something back to the gaming and development community. We’re giving back Decoda.

The announcement further explains that the Decoda environment can be used to modify NS2 itself, or create their own games on NS2's Spark Engine, or another engine entirely, and they hope that feedback and contributions and experimentation from the community will result in collaborative improvements to Decoda itself.

You can download the Decoda source and a Windows installer over at unknownworlds.com.

Natural Selection 2 itself can be found on Steam for US$24.99.

Natural Selection 2 is not only a design triumph for a small indie team, it's a release triumph for mod communities and core, passionate gamers everywhere.

We scored the game a very respectable 9/10 saying that "the end result is surprisingly exceptional, and more often than not, brilliant". Following on from our review and after months of access to the game pre-release, Kosta Andreadis spoke with Unknown Worlds' Hugh Jeremy (an Aussie ex-pat) to formulate an extensive look at not only the making of a game like this, but also the importance of the mod community and core, vocal gamers everywhere.

Click here for to check out this in-depth feature.

After many years of hard work and the steady flow of development, developer Unknown Worlds has today released the sequel to the original Half-Life mod, Natural Selection 2.

Natural Selection 2 is an immersive, multiplayer shooter that pits aliens against humans in a strategic and action-packed struggle for survival. It seamlessly combines a shooter/FPS gameplay with a strategy (RTS) game.

Control the resources. Defend your base. Listen to your commander. Be prepared to face more and more powerful alien foes. Learn their many forms and abilities, and how to counter them. Find the heart of the Kharaa threat, and eradicate it. The battle begins now. Its outcome rests in your hands.

If you are still on the fence as to whether this game is your kind of style, check out our recent review for a look at what we thought. You can also check out the launch trailer below for some gameplay in action as well.

Natural Selection 2 is available on Steam for PC.

Natural Selection 2, a game that many thought would never see the light of day is finally doing just that. Developed by Unknown Worlds, the game is a sequel of popular Half-Life mod Natural Selection, and sees two teams comprised of aliens versus humans pitted together in an FPS RTS sci-fi battle to the end.

With a rifle in one hand and the will to learn the steep learning curve, Kosta Andreadis took to the battle to see whether Natural Selection 2 really does live up to its development time.

What exactly sets Natural Selection 2 apart from other competitive online shooters is its blend of classic corridor team-based shooting that has become a PC-staple for decades now with the strategy elements found in RTS games like StarCraft. On paper this may sound a little gimmicky or even at worst, something that’s different enough to be a fun diversion for a few hours -- but in execution the end result is surprisingly exceptional, and more often than not, brilliant.

Check out the full review over here.

Developer Unknown Worlds has finally settled on a release date for Natural Selection 2, a game that has been in development for quite some time with what could only consist of a large amount of sweat, blood and tears. The team has announced that October 31st will be the official release date, coinciding with the 10th year anniversary for the original Natural Selection.

Creating Natural Selection 2 was a risk, and an immense challenge. Combining two genres, Real Time Strategy and First Person Shooter, is difficult. Not only that, but creating an entirely new engine, Spark, for it all to run on added layers of complexity to the development.

The challenge has been met. Two factors have led us to this day. The first is the drive, skill, determination and dedication of the founders of Unknown Worlds. An entire company was built around this game. The second is the incredible commitment and support of the Natural Selection community. You funded it, you tested it, you submitted content, fixes and ideas to it, now you are telling the world about it.

Ten years ago a game tried something different. Exactly one decade later it will be back. We hope you will join us in welcoming it into the gaming world.

The game is currently available for pre-ordering on Steam with a standard and deluxe edition available for USD$24.99 and USD$39.99 respectively. You can check out the original announcement for details on what each edition includes over here, plus check out our game page for a collection of the latest screenshots and videos.

Unknown Worlds has announced that Natural Selection 2 is now available to pre-order on Steam, marking a massive point in their long development cycle after months of beta-testing, asset-teasing and what we can only assume would be copious amounts of blood, sweat and tears.

"This day is one we have looked forward to for many years, and marks a major milestone in the development of this game," the team wrote on their official site. "We are also happy to announce a release month: October. As we clear some final hurdles over the next few weeks, we will nail that down to a specific day."

The team are offering both a Standard and Deluxe version of the game for pre-order, with the Standard edition coming in at only USD$24.99 which will give you the game, while the Deluxe edition will set you back USD$39.99 and features:

• NS2 Official Soundtrack (almost 1 hour of music)
  
• Digital Art Book (40 pages)
  
• Exclusive wallpapers and avatars
  
• Exclusive new in-game marine armor

But that's not all, the team also have more love for their fans, pledging that anyone who pre-ordered the game before today's Steam sale or anyone who played in the Beta will get the following:

• A free upgrade to the Deluxe Edition detailed above
  
• A free copy of NS2 Standard Edition to give to a friend or stroke lovingly
  
• Continued private beta access right up to launch day in October

They've also said that from today until the actual release day of the game, the Deluxe edition will be discounted to USD$24.99. Not bad for an indie team.

Click here to get your Steam pre-ordering on.

The indie dev crew at Unknown Worlds continue to feed out tidbits of information about the hotly anticipated FPS sequel Natural Selection 2, the latest reveal being a tool no self-respecting space marine should be without, the flamethrower.

Currently there is no secondary fire implemented for the Flamethrower, though we have several ideas kicking around that we’d like to experiment with. One very useful gameplay aspect of the flamethrower, however, is that it can be used to clear rooms of Dynamic Infestation. It’s likely that the flamethrower will be the only item in the Marines’ arsenal capable of this, making it extremely necessary for pushing back the alien advance.

When faced with a raging inferno of fiery destruction the aliens will be cheered to see their fat firemen friends racing to the rescue - Gorges will be able to put out fires using their heal spray.

Check out the embedded video below or hit up the official site for more specifics.

Natural Selection 2 is currently in the alpha testing stage and a release date is still yet to be announced.

Following up on yesterday's promised reveal and confirming the speculative guesses of most, Unknown Worlds have announced July 26th 2010 as the launch date for their first Alpha test of the hotly anticipated Natural Selection 2.

Unlike many game's alpha and beta tests that restrict their players to a privileged few, the NS2 alpha will be open to anyone that has pre-ordered the special edition of the game. For those who haven't yet, you've got two weeks to sort it out if you want in on the Alpha test.

By giving out stuff earlier, we encourage people to buy earlier, which means we can fund the company without having a publisher involved. Remaining independent is not without its drawbacks, but was the right choice for us and has allowed us to build a proper sequel worthy of the original.

Here's what to expect:

NS2 Alpha 1 content

• One of our shipping maps (ns2_tram), plus some smaller "test" maps
  
• Marine, with Rifle, Pistol, SwitchAx, Grenade Launcher
  
• Skulks, Gorges, Lerks and their basic movement abilities and weapons
  
• Marine armory "buy" screen for purchasing new equipment
  
• Alien evolution menu for choosing your lifeform and upgrades
  
• Basic marine and alien commander interfaces including MACs, Drifters
  
• Much of our final sounds, artwork, animations, etc.

Check out the official site for more details.

If you're a pre-order customer for Natural Selection 2, you might be interested to note that the team have released an "engine test", offering a first glimpse at this anticipated shooter:

Today is a big milestone for Unknown Worlds: we've just released the NS2 "Engine Test" to everyone that has pre-ordered the game!

This is the first version of the game and game engine where you can run around on a couple small maps and fire the rifle at animated dummy targets. It isn't supposed to represent gameplay for NS2 (or really, any gameplay at all!) but serves to help us test our technology to make sure we get it running smoothly on a wide variety of computers.

If you're a pre-order customer you can download the engine test locally from AusGamers now to check it out.

Independent developers Wolfire Games and Uknown Worlds Entertainment are bundling Overgrowth and Natural Selection 2 for pre-order for over 40% off at a price of $39.95 (for one week only)!

Already pre-ordered one of these games? Then you should be in for a nice surprise as you now get the other one free! If you pre-ordered NS2, you can get a free copy of Overgrowth here. If you pre-ordered Overgrowth, you can get a free copy of NS2 Special Edition here.

What makes this bundle so awesome is that unlike other "indie" bundles which are hosted by corporate middle men, we are actually putting this promotion on by ourselves, so all sales will directly support our game development. We both practice "open development" which means that preordering gets you access to early builds of our games and tech. Since we're building our own engines from scratch and bundling them with editor suites, people are already able to start building their own custom levels (and have already been doing so!).

We don't have marketing budgets so we're relying heavily on word of mouth. Please be sure to tell your friends!

This trailer sums it all up nicely...


Check the official site for more info.

The Organic Indie Preorder Pack FAQ will answer any questions you have about things like steam.

Promoted/Edited forum item

The Unknown Worlds website is carrying word of Natural Selection 2, an upcoming commercial game (yes, that means you'll have to pay for it):

Natural Selection 2 is the next wave in the war for survival between humankind and the Kharaa. Natural Selection 2 is the next evolution in multiplayer action/strategy gameplay and will be targeted for both competitive and public play. New features include dynamically changing environments, a new resource model, flexible game scripting and modes, and new weapons, abilities and upgrades. Natural Selection 2 will be a stand-alone commercial game for release on VALVe software's digital distribution service called Steam