The game director for Warhawk, Dylan Jobe, has announced a new patch for Warhawk. This new patch doesn’t fix any major bugs, but it promises to deliver 5 new elements which will enhance gameplay a bit. It will bring us new troop equipment (two pieces), HOME Game Launching, VOIP and player-created customizations.

Jobe also mentions that since the game’s launch people have logged over 7.3 million hours of gameplay and have scored over 206 million kills, which is quite a lot considering the relatively small user base. But now onto the patch details explained by Jobe:

• Mechanic’s Field Wrench:
  As you might expect, this piece of equipment is used to repair vehicles. Once you get the pickup, you swing it just like the combat blade. Then, just walk up to, or onto an allied vehicle and “whack” it with the wrench. It repairs wicked fast so it’s very effectively during combat. On the offensive side, not only is it still a one-hit-kill against troops, but it can be used to damage enemy vehicles as well!

• Bio-Field Generator:
  To use a Bio-Field, grab the pick up and throw it down like a proximity mine. It sticks to walls, ceilings, anything…including vehicles. Then, if any ally stands within its bio-reactive field, his health will quickly regen. Alternatively, and this is where some neat tactics emerge, if an enemy walks into the bio-field (yes, bio-fields are color coded), they’ll take damage – their lungs sizzling like bacon….mmmmm bacon.

• HOME Game Launching:
  Yeah Baby…So our HOME integration is coming along nicely and this update includes a great, and much needed feature for Warhawk. With the release of v1.3 patch, players will be able to form groups, meet in their apartments, discuss tactics, and then launch a game of Warhawk…all together!

  When you’re in your apartment, all you do is whip-out your virtual PSP, select ‘create game’ and pick Warhawk. From there, you get to start your own player server, pick a game rotation, set server options and then…BAM !! Launch Warhawk with all of your friends!! You can also pick to not make your game viewable to the other Warhawk players around the world, or you can make it a ‘public’ game that puts all of your friends into the server together, and leaves open slots for other global Warhawk players join.

  Games launched from HOME show up in the global games list in an attactive gold color.

• New VOIP Options:

  We have also received a lot of feedback about VOIP stuff. There were a couple of features that players really wanted, and hopefully this gives them a big chunk of their crazy, crazy VOIP desires.

  We now allow players to select between PTT and Open-Mic. Players can also tune the voice-activation level so they don’t accidentally broadcast their girlfriend or boyfriend blabbering-on in the background. Players also now get to more clearly see who’s talking. It’s displayed on the right side of the screen. And yes, the picture below is correct. We also now support an “all-talk” server option so that you can enable cross-team trash talk.
  What else…oh yeah, we now display which player is speaking at the score screen too. And…we let you pick players from the score screen to mute/un-mute their VOIP.

• New Paint Schemes & Insignias:

  If you’re an avid Warhawk player, then you know that we are sponsoring a contest that allows players to submit their own, custom, paint schemes for the Nemesis and Warhawk. We’re also allowing players to submit custom insignias too. We’ll be picking the winners and including these new customizations with the v1.3 patch.

  Now I’m not posting these because they have already won…but these are some neat designs and I wanted the blog readers to see some of the great paint schemes that have been coming in.

  And one last thing…we want insignias too. Send us your insignias…and please DO NOT just scan something out of a magazine. Seriously!

Ok, you know what to do, start working on those insignias! Unfortunately a release date hasn’t been released for the patch as it’s in final testing. If all goes well it shouldn’t be too long before it’ll be available.