Ever since we have seen the Blacklight: Retribution trailer, the crew at GDN has been 
eagerly awaiting its release. We’ve been tinkering around in the closed beta and now the beta is open to the public. GDN had the great honor of asking Jared Gerritzen, Head of Zombie Studios and Lead Designer, a few questions about the game. See what he had to say.
I remember the previous Blacklight title, but some of our readers may not. What specific improvements will we be seeing in Blacklight: Retribution over the Blacklight: Tango Down?
We pretty much made Blacklight: Retribution from the ground up. The biggest difference is our spawning and map design. The maps are not mirrored anymore and have a dynamic spawning system that gets rid of bases and most of all spawn camping. We also added a great new system that allows us to add very powerful weapons and gear called Weapon Depots. The Depots allow players to earn points and buy weapons and best of all the Hardsuit. Even more additions to the game are fully customizable player classes and gear. We really took Blacklight: Retribution to the next level, it’s not Tango Down with new maps and weapons.
I remember the couple of times I played Tango Down, I was frustrated by continuous spawn camping. Any insights on how the new spawning system will work in Retribution ?
That was a huge mistake with how we did our level design and spawning in Tango Down. It was the first thing we fixed with Blacklight: Retribution. We really took to heart all the feedback from the community. We have rebuilt the spawning system in Blacklight: Retribution, and we continue to make tweaks which fans will see in our free monthly updates and content drops. We have no plans of dropping the ball this time.
I know that so many gamers are loving the Free-to-play revolution going on in gaming, but it always brings up the same question. After it releases, will gamers consider Blacklight Retribution to be Free-to-play or Pay-to-Win?
Free to Play is a scary thing to people, I totally understand as I felt the same way when I heard about it 3 years ago. But Blacklight: Retribution is a Free to play game that is balanced for all the players. You don’t get better weapons by dropping some cash. FtoP is a very hot concept for everyone right now, but most are following the old way to make Free to plays and you have to rent weapons, never owning them. We’ve changed that and players can own weapons even by using in-game points.
So you chose to go Free-to-play, and I hear that Perfect World has teamed up with Zombie Studios. How has that business relationship changed or helped Retribution?
Perfect World is what gives us the edge in the next generation of Free to play games. They have a great deal of experience shipping and maintaining Free to plays games and they have shared so much information that has helped us focus our efforts on Blacklight: Retribution. Most developers going in without a seasoned publisher wouldn’t have that support. It’s been a great partnership with them.
