It’s fair to say Destruction AllStars hasn’t been the smashing success Sony was hoping for. Originally announced as a launch title, the PS5-exclusive vehicular combat game launched last February as a free PS Plus game to mediocre reviews.
While it was initially planned to be a full-priced game, Destruction AllStars is priced at a more reasonable £17.99. Considering it's so light on content, it’s hard to believe Sony was originally going to charge £70 for the vehicle wrecking racer. But as its first anniversary approaches, there are rumours that Destruction AllStars could become free-to-play.
Destruction AllStars could go free-to-play
According to a Reddit post, in-game challenges were temporarily renamed when the servers were shut down for maintenance before the latest patch update was deployed. If you booted the game up during maintenance, the in-game challenge namess were displayed as code.
The Reddit user noticed that every challenge was renamed with the prefix "BS_F2P_CHALLENGE". This possibly indicates Sony intends to make Destruction AllStars free-to-play soon to entice new players.
A major update revamps the gameplay – but will players return?
Unfortunately, Destruction AllStars has struggled to retain players. Player counts became so low that Lucid Games added bots to keep matches active last year. When it launched, Destruction AllStars was also criticised for its lack of gameplay and unintuitive gameplay. In response to criticisms, developer Lucid Games has deployed a major update that revamps the gameplay and user interface.
As Lucid Games explains on Reddit, the menus have been redesigned to highlight players in parties more clearly. The in-game HUD has also been revamped too, while new visual effects “make certain actions clearer and easier to understand.” Impacts also have new visual effects indicating how hard you hit an opponent.
Furthermore, the previous Wreckognition system has been replaced with a new combo system that rewards skilled players. Everything you do earns points, from slamming into opponents to swapping vehicles. Chaining combos together now unlocks in-match rewards including your hero vehicle. Previously, the on-foot breaker and hero vehicle bar would increase over time even if you did nothing.
It sounds like these changes make Destruction AllStars more engaging, intuitive, and rewarding to play. Helpfully, these new mechanics are explained in new training videos to help new and experienced players alike.
Whether these changes are enough to bring back players remains to be seen, however. If you own a PS5, it might be worth taking Sony’s forgotten combat racer out for another spin and have a smashing good time.
Destruction AllStars update 3.0.1 patch notes
Front-end & UI
- The top page of the UI will now be a 3d scene and navigated via an L1/R1 Tab menu.
- The character changes based on your previously used character. If you’re in a party, your party-mates will appear as 3d characters behind you
- AllStar Pass is being removed.
- The UX for Customise is also being switched to a tabs system and will now be navigated with L2/R2.
- The character select carousel is being removed and replaced with a grid.
- Avatars and banners will change to a grid style selection
- Practice has been renamed Training.
- Training is being streamlined. The tutorial level has been simplified, down from 16 steps to 8 and will no longer be compulsory.
- The training section now includes multiple training videos, split into 5 sections
- FUNDAMENTALS
- ON FOOT
- IN VEHICLE
- ALLSTARS
- GAMEPLAY
- Arcade and PhotoMode are now combined in their own Tab section accessible with the L2/R2 buttons.
ProfileThe profile tab has had the following changes.
- The rewards for ranking up are clearer on the progress page.
- There will be base level stats on the progress page.
- The badges page is being slightly adjusted to show more badges.
- We have removed the total XP number and replaced it with XP Remaining to the next level.
New content notification
There is now a more detailed info system in the UI to show when you have unlocked some new content or an unseen challenge.
Orange pips will appear to indicate something has updated in the game, they will show up for the following reasons in the main menu.
- The shop has updated
- A new story mode is available
- An new XP level has been reached
- New unseen challenge
They are cleared by visiting the relevant area in the UI. Less time wondering and searching!
Postgame Rollover
Postgame/rollover is being streamlined so players can get to the next match quicker
- You’ll be able to matchmake straight from the postgame podium screen and won't have to return to the main menu.
- The mini leaderboard from the match is shown on the podium HUD.
- Challenges are shown on the podium HUD.
- The Podium Art is being updated.
- Ranking-up and unlocked items will only be shown when leaving the queue and returning to the main menu.
Hit Messaging Revision
- Upon hitting and slamming into another player, the UI has been redesigned to give a more impactful feeling and give the player more feedback with the following visual cues.
On a successful hit or slam, small crystals will be seen adding to your point counter with the following colours correlating to the size of your impact.
- Green-light hit
- Orange-medium hit
- Red-heavy hit
- Impacts will now also show a floating number to show the amount of damage inflicted
- Vehicle health is now called out by smoke/fire FX on the vehicle as well as in the UI. The more damaged your car is, the more it catches fire!
Other hud revisions
- Voice comms icon moved to mid right.
- Minimap moved to the top right.
- Remote Damage messaging moved to the Left side of the HUD.
- World Event Messaging on the Right side of the HUD.
- Badges have also been moved to the centre.
Training & Onboarding
Tutorial-The tutorial/Ignition level is being heavily simplified, down from 16 steps to 8 and will no longer be compulsory.Welcoming challenges
- Training will also be supplemented by a series of Welcoming Challenges. These sit alongside daily and weekly challenges but there’s a limited number of them.When all welcoming challenges have been completed, the whole system disappears from the UI.
Training Videos
We wanted to make our selection of training material much more accessible and easier to understand for all players, new and old. (You might learn something new, who knows?!) So, we’ve completely redesigned our training section in-game with in-depth explanations and videos to explain nearly everything you can do whilst playing. These are all broken down into their own relevant sections with multiple videos in each.
The FundamentalsOn-FootIn VehicleAllStars
Game PlayParty & XP Changes
- There is now an xp bonus for playing in a party. The bonus is set to 20%
- The small grey XP icon in the bottom right of the hud is an indicator of this bonus’ status. It will turn green when you’re in an in-game party.
- Limit changed to 3 players, down from 4.
- Party renamed to AllStars Squad
- Players can party up and enter Solo modes together.
Match XP Bonus
- There will also be a consecutive bonus of 5000 XP, if you queue for another game without going back to the main menu.
Voice comms
Voice comms are being slightly simplified.
- A party will no longer be created for lone players. You’ll have to have an invite accepted to start one.
- The icons for toggling game chat will be standardised across the game
- The icons will be added to the character select and the in-game pause menu
- Will represent the current state of the local players voice comms, if the green icon is showing then they're in the game chat, if it’s red, they’ve muted game chat.
- If players are in a player session, we’ll grey out the icons.
- Adding a muted icon to signify when players are muted/not in game chat.
Wreckognition
The Wreckognition system is being entirely replaced with a new combo system for rewarding skillful play.Have a look at our previous Dev Update blog for information about Wreckognition and our explanation video here.
Gameplay Balancing
General
- When vehicles are low health, smoke and fire will message the state of the vehicle.
- Levels of smoke and fire will increase as vehicle health gets lower.
- Rebalancing the cameras shake timers to match when slamming.
- Wheel health adjusted to prevent nudges and single hits from causing wheels to come off.
Shards
- The amount of shards has been reduced across all maps.
- Pick-up of shards has been locked out when both abilities are fully charged and ready to use and they will appear in a greyed-out state.
On-foot speed and recovery times.
- On-foot character speeds were previously fairly arbitrarily assigned. They are now being normalised around 3 archetypes; Fast, Agile & Tough.Evade and roll speeds will be tweaked as well, along with the impulses that characters receive from KO’s.
Fast: Alba, Genesis, Lupita, BlueFang, Hana, Angelo, Xander.
Agile: Shyft, BoxTop, Ratu, TwinkleRiot, Jian.Tough: Ultimo Barricado, Fuego, Harmony, Sgt Rescue.
Double Jumping
- Double-jump will no longer be a part of character breakers and will be available at all times.To support this change, a small amount of changes to platform and shard positioning has been made throughout the game.
Revised character movement effects
- There's improvements being made to some movement VFX.
All the following moves will now have a large white stylised particle FX associated with them to give more feedback to your movements whilst on-foot.
- Ricochet (3 variants of this depending on angle of wall approach)
- Double Jump
- Barge
- Vehicle Eject
- Vault Boost
- Landing Boost
Takeover/Wreckover
- Takeover and wreckover has been considerably simplified. The minigame has been entirely removed as we felt this was more of a lucky guess and heavily in favour of who started hitting the Square or Circle button first by sheer chance.Players on-foot will be able to initiate a Takeover/Wreckover after a successful evade.The person being attacked (in the vehicle) will have a chance to repel Takeover/Wreckover attempts by performing a forward slam within a time window to throw the attacking player off.If they do not slam forward in time, the Takeover/Wreckover option will appear for the attacking player to choose from.
Character Balancing
All Characters
- Removed differences between classes on wall run distances, ledge hang durations and Vehicle interaction radius.
- Adjusted jump speeds for all including vault edge boost.
- Barge recovery has been reduced from 0.85s to 0.5s
- All characters can now double jump without needing to activate their on-foot breaker.
- Removed yellow marker and streamlined system to single red threat when a vehicle is nearby an on-foot player.
- Increased the speed needed to trigger a plant turn to limit the number of character skids at low speeds.
Genesis
- Genesis will have a sonic boom that will continuously fire and when she is running at top speed the blast effect will be bigger.
- - This boom will blast on-foot opponents out of the way.
- - This boom will damage and push vehicles.
- - Damaging vehicles and knocking down rivals will trigger score events.
- - Top run speed will be reduced.
Shyft
- Shyft now gets bonus score events when stealthed.
Xander
- Messaging will be updated to relay the hit and impact from the mine.
- Speed of mines dropping on the floor increased.
Ultimo
- When Ultimo activates his ability he should not be able to be shaken off even during slams.
Harmony
- VFX adjusted to better show the blast area of Harmony’s vehicle breaker.
- Force of barge increased by 20%
- Hero vehicle ability cooldown reduced to 10s. (previously 12s)
Boxtop
- Messaging will be updated to relay the hit and impact from their mines.
- Speed of mines dropping to the floor increased.
- Boxmobile's slam cooldown is now 3.1s without ability active, and 2.5s with ability active
SGT. Rescue
- Added ready lights to character to message ability ready state.
- Increased the size and opacity levels of Sgt Rescue’s smoke.
Angelo
- Flashbang will no longer trigger on emote.
- Hero vehicle damage increased to x3.0 (previously x2.6)
- Lock-on ability will now only target vehicles.
- Lock-on ability will remain on the vehicle even if the target ejects.
- Lock-on ability target is lost from vehicle if ownership is changed on target. (i.e a successful takeover)
Ratu
- Increased on-foot breaker damage to vehicles to 20. (previously 10)
- Overhauled VFX system to provide accurate representation of the ability blast range.
Bluefang
- Guards now raise faster, delay of 0.1s added to shredding. This is a visual change only to better show when Bluefang’s vehicle ability is active.
- Hero vehicle ability cooldown reduced to 22s. (previously 25s)
Jian
- Hero Vehicle ability forward slam cooldown decreased to 2.5s (previously 2.8s)
- Hero vehicle ability increased to 10s. (previously 8s)
- Hero vehicle ability damage reduced to 30. (previously 50)
TwinkleRiot
- Hero Vehicle ability forward slam reduced to 2.1s / 2s / 1.9s. (Previously 2.3s / 2.1s / 1.9s)
- Hero Vehicle side slam reduced to 2s / 1.9s / 1.8s. (Previously 2s / 2s / 2s set in error)
Ratu
- Overhauled VFX for in-vehicle breaker to accurately message range of blast and different radius of the blast rings. Range is unchanged.
Hana
- Hero vehicle ability reduced to 8s (previously 12s)
Known Issues
- Launching a Story Mode activity while in Photo Mode causes the game to soft lock, and will require a system reboot to solve.
- Completed multiplayer matches may appear as activity cards that have no function.