Gameloft's Otilia Lazar talks global Blitz Brigade release, future updates, promotions, and more

Back in February, Gameloft soft-launched a colourful Team Fortress 2-esque shooter called Blitz Brigade on the French App Store.

If you've been wondering when this fast-paced shooter will be released around the world and on Android, make sure you carry on reading.

And if you haven't, just carry on reading, anyway.

We recently got a chance to chat to Gameloft's product manager Otilia Lazar about global release dates for Blitz Brigade, forthcoming updates to the game, and much more.

This is what she said...

Otilia Lazar: Yes, the game did have a soft-launch in France for a little while.

Based on user feedback and analytics from that launch, we decided to spend more time fine-tuning the game before the worldwide release, which I estimate will be early May.

Regular game updates are always part of Gameloft's strategy. We want people to continue playing and enjoying our games for a very long time.

Our team has created a funny and true online FPS experience in Blitz Brigade, but there's always room for improvement. We're already planning to add further variety to the game by adding more maps, weapons, and new playable classes.

We will also be including seasonal events in the game. For example, our team is already thinking up how to celebrate Halloween. We always pay particular attention to the suggestions of players in order to give them the best experience possible.

It was never actually a pay-to-play system, since you could still play for free. We did, however, test an energy system based on tokens.

Players started off with five tokens, which they could spend to join multiplayer matches. Those tokens regenerated over time for free. But we received a lot of requests asking for unlimited free multiplayer matches, so we took the tokens out and gave the fans what they wanted.

Have you made any other major changes to Blitz Brigade since soft-launching the game? Were these based on user feedback?

Yes. Based on player feedback during the game's soft launch in France, we decided to improve the gameplay and user experience for the worldwide release.

One way in which we did this was to introduce rewards for winning multiplayer matches each day. Oh, and we offer free Diamonds (in-game hard currency) to players at the beginning of the game.

We also solved some server-side issues to improve connectivity. And we added quite a few extra gameplay features.

Blitz Brigade relies heavily on premium currencies. Will you offer gamers additional way to earn freebies?

I wouldn't say the game relies that heavily on premium currencies. In fact, players can buy most of the items with soft currency as soon as they reach the required level.

Aside from that, there will be several ways to earn Diamonds. For example, every time a player levels-up - or after every tenth multiplayer victory in a day - he'll receive Diamonds as a reward.

Also, all players will receive 35 Diamonds at the start. And we're going to have a Free Cash button, from where you can earn free Diamonds by watching videos.

Yes, we already have discount bundles that contain lots of goodies for each class. We'll also run promotions for limited-time periods offering discounted items or cash packs.

We wanted to create a fun team-based first-person shooter.

We felt like this kind of game was underrepresented on smartphones and tablets, and that there are a lot of potential fans of this genre on iOS and Android.

With Blitz Brigade, then, we wanted to fill this gap and create something unique, cartoony, and wildly fun. Something that would stand apart from the crowd of realistic shooters on mobile devices.