Industrial Toy’s Midnight Star (Free), the F2P first-person shooter from Alex Seropian, one of Bungie’s founders, Paul Bertonethe, one of Halo‘s designers, and with a story written by John Scalzi, is getting a big 1.1 update soon that will mainly focus on improving the game’s multiplayer experience. For those who aren’t familiar with the game, it’s a first-person on-rails shooter with a multiplayer component focused around a variety of challenges where players go for highest score, most headshots, quickest time, etc. The devs have said that among other features, this update will add new weapons, sharing of video highlights, and giving more Challenge timer options.

The most important change, though, is already live, and it really alters the way multiplayer challenges are played. Originally, a player’s best score was determined by his or her last attempt (usually there are three attempts to complete a challenge). The result of that rule was that most players wouldn’t use up all of their three attempts, fearing that a bad run would diminish the good work they’d already done. Although this rule allowed for some strategy in the way a player took on the challenge, the most common result was that most players would stop at one or two attempts. The developers felt that players should be free to go all out throughout the challenge, so the victor of a challenge will now be determined by the best rather than last score. I’m glad they’ve changed the rule, because I often found myself hesitating to use all of my attempts in fear of messing up an earlier good run.

It’s good to see the developers willing to continue fine-tuning an already well-designed game to improve the player experience. Work on the update is well under way and 1.1 should be coming out soon (no date announced yet). In the meantime, be sure to read our original review of Midnight Star.