End Times

End Times, also known as End Times: The Order, is a historical fiction open world action-adventure game being developed by DECA Paris and published DECA. The game is released on 26 October, 2017 and will be released for Playstation 4, Xbox One, Wii-U and Microsoft Windows. The game uses teh lates version of the Wartech engine, called W4rtech.

The story takes place somewhere in 2012 and in the early 1700's in the West Indies. It's the first enstallment in the End Times and a sequel is announced in-game at the end of the singleplayer.

Gameplay
End Times takes place in a huge territorial area, which is under the influence of the Spanish and the English. The game features lots of islands and towns across the map to visit, alongside multiple major cities, including Havana, New Orleans and Kingston. To travel through the map, the player takes control of a ship, which he can steer to any direction he wants. The player can encounter multiple animals on land and in water and can kill them to get items from them, such as skin. The player can upgrade his character throughout the game, using items he found in the world and got from an attack. To get items, players can hunt animals, go to shops, complete missions or attack English and Spanish people and ships. The player can customize his weaponry like swords or guns, but can also improve his armor to get more resistance or more stealth.

Story
The story takes place in 2012, with Dave McKnight waking up from a dream, which was really realistic and another one in a short time. After he goes to a doctor, a scientist confronts him. He says that his dreams are visions of a prophecy, which occurs on the day the mayans predicted the apocalypse. After Dave followed the scientists to their working place, he asks what it is all about. The scientists reply that once the Mayans predicted the apocalypse, also known as the end time. The prophecy was powered by an orb, containing the power to let the apocalypse happen. Dave sees the visions, because one of his ancestors had control of the orb. The orb gave his family the powers to see the end time coming. If Dave accepts his fate and asks the scientists what to do, they reply that they can control his mind to make him witness the story of his ancestor who got the orb first. Dave gets a bionic suit and goes into a trance, trying to control his visions. He is taken back to the early 1700's, seeing his ancestor named Joseph Faulkner, an english seaman.

Faulkner and his comrades are entering an islands to check pirate activity in the area. The captain promises that if the signal isn't given when the sun goes down, they will come and rescue the soldiers on the dry land. Faulkner boards a sloop and they slowly drift to the coast. When they step on teh beach, the pirates ambush teh english and a few soldiers are killed. Faulkner fights against the pirates with his sabre and manages to grab a pistol of one of the pirates adn uses it to fight the other pirates. However, teh pirates gain teh upper hand and Faulkner decides to give the signal, since the sun is almost down. He runs towards the pre-arranged point, but he struggles on the way to it due the heavy resistance. Luckily, he gives the signal before the sun is down and lights a torch. Waiting for the fleet to react, a pirate ship attacks the fleet. Suddenly, the fleet turns around and leaves the english seaman, who are still fighting to survive, behind. Faulkner sees the betrayal of the captain and takes the loadout of one of the pirates and hides until the night falls.

Multiplayer
Multiplayer of End Times takes place in another map with the same layout, but the player is put in a MMO server. He can team up with smart AI or a clan with other online players to compete with each other on multiple scales, like daily, weekly, monthly and even a yearly based competition. The player needs to complete missions, based on dominating islands/towns/forts, hijacking ships from AI or other clans, assassinating AI or other players and more. After each game, the player gets a report, saying how much they earned of everything.

The player can level up, giving more options to weapons and armor, which can be bought and/or upgraded by goods and money like in singleplayer. The player can also prestige, unlocking everything from the start and can be crafted once again. However, the player can only prestiges once and needs to go further with another character if he or she wants to start a new character. This can be done on teh same account, due a player can have 10 customizable characters for one account.

Engine
The new engine of End Times, called W4rtech, features a whole new in-game feature that focuses on processing data on a large scale. The AI is improved and now consists out of different types, so each AI will act differently liek real persons and it gives the game a more tactical gameplay, due you never know how the AI will react. Exemples of types of AI are the one that is extremely observant and sees or hears the player faster, another warns and calls in his teammates faster, some don't notice much, others might as well try to stealth kill the player. The next thing of the AI types are if the AI can handle weapons easily, or can free run easy. That way each AI has a combination, creating thousends of AI types.

The AI also consists of other things, like nature. Lots of variety of anmials appear in the games. Some can be used for skins to craft upgrades, otehrs can be hunted for money adn trading goods. NAture also conludes weather, on land and on the sea. The wind can blow very hard in a second and that way blowing ships on the land or blowing wooden buildings down. The player also suffers in movement during storm and bullets will blow off. On sea can appear whirpools, water tornados or even Hurrianes. The player needs to adapt on the weather to not get much damage. Other features are heavy rain, drought, floods, thunderstorms and other regular based weathers.

The graphics are also much approved from Wartech 3.0, giving a face even more details during speaking sequences and cuts and bruises. That way, up close shots are shown often and even during weather, the engine easily transfors the data into a new face. For exemple, when a cutscene starts after a heavy fight, the player has cuts on his face and dirt on his cloths. If it is raining in the same cutscene, raindrops are shown on the face. if there's a storm, his clothes, hair or hood is blowing all around.

Controls
The controls are based on older wartech using games, giving much animations and combinatiosn due the use of multiple combination of buttons. However, also in this game the basic moves which require one button are enough to play the game with. Note: The controls will be displayed by the use of ps4 buttons.

The left joystick is used to walk around, while the right joystick is used to control the camera. The player can select the inversion mode for both controls. To run or dash, the player needs to hold R2 while using left joystick. To bend knees, the player needs to push L3 and then when the player pushes it a secodn time or dashes, he will stretch his knees again and goes back to normal position.

To attack, the player can use the square button to use normal melee attack, with the selected weapon. If the player holds R1 while using the square button, the player will use the special weapon, which was selected. The attack will be used in a combination, no matter if the player decides to use a special weapon in the middle of a chain.

To climb or jump, the player can use the X button. If the player wants to interact with someone, he can also use the X button when displayed on screen.

If the player wants to grab a person or a ting, he can use the circle button. While holding a thing or person and then holding down R1, the player pulls out the special weapon and can use the thing as a shield to protect him.

The up, down, left and right buttons are weapon switchers for fast switching of weapons in battle. The player can select 3 melee weapons under the left, right and down button and a special weapon under the up button. That way, the player can equip 4 melee weapons adn 2 special weapons in battle and can easily switch whitout going to pause the game.

The player can use the L2 to lock down on a person and then select the X button to mark him. For exemple in a pursuit, the player can hold down the L2 button to keep the camera on that person. L2 can also be used while pursuing a person adn then push the circle button to hide on an available position by bending into the enivornment.

By pressing the start button, the player goes to the menu. Wiht select, the player goes to the in-game menu of the map and can mark certain locations to appear on mini map or can spot certain places by hints.