Team Peak has been dropping beta patches for their self-titled mountain-climbing extravaganza,Peak, at an appreciably swift tempo. Peak’scommercial performancehas been outstanding, and the devs have shown no signs of slowing down as they scale the walls of continued success. There are some things they just refuse to add to the ever-growing survival game -like cannibalism, for instance- but we can still anticipate heaps of nifty little alterations in future updates.
On Friday, Peak launched its latest round of tweaks. Beta Patch 0.8.d offers an option for reduced camera bobbing to accommodate folks who might be suffering some queasiness from all the quick tilts and tumbles. There’s fresh theme music for sunsets and sunrises in specific biomes, two new items to acquire (a flying disc and some binoculars), and you’re able to now pausewhen playing the game offline. But most of us have zoomed in past all these features to magnify oneremarkablyfunny sentence.
Death Is Now The Problem It Always Ought To Have Been
Prior to the patch, the natural goal of the game - namely, to reach the top of each stage’s mountain, thus “peaking” - did not, in fact, require one’s character to be alive to achieve it. This oversight has now been remedied. Check the ‘Major Fixes’ category on theofficial patch notes page, and the first thing you’ll see, all bolded up for emphasis, is “YOU NO LONGER WIN WHEN YOU DIE”. Team Peak goes on to explain what these somewhat mortifying words mean:
“So, literally the code that checked if players PEAKED just checked for whether or not you were past the PEAK on the forward axis. It did not check for whether you were alive. This will now prevent players from doing the thing where, by throwing themselves off the cliff or glitching into the void, they would mysteriously win the game.” -Team Peak
There’s something rather dark in all of this. In any case, it’s probably for the best that a game centered in large part around the process of survival should henceforth requiresurvivalas a condition for victory. Peak’s gotdeadly obstacles, dubious foodstuffs,and a straightforward goal of getting yourself to the highest possible point on its enigmatic island.
You’re headed up there in the hopes of being rescued, and being dead should probably be the ultimate disqualifier. If you’ve been playing Peak, and you happen to have been given a surprise celebration at any point despite your cute cartoonish avatar no longer drawing breath, treasure that moment. Because it looks like it’s never happening again.
