Ever wished you could influence the gameplay of a streamer you’re watching via Twitch in real-time? Well, consider your wish granted. Recently released (and, mind you, critically acclaimed) action-adventure game Rise of the Tomb Raider will allow you to do just that. In a recent announcement made by Microsoft’s MajorNelson, details have been revealed about how watching someone play as Lara Croft via Twitch will now be more interactive, allowing viewers to influence the streamer’s game in real time.
It sounds a bit complicated, but it’s rather simple, and, let’s be honest, limited, at least for now. Still, it can make watching streams more interesting, and this is what Microsoft and Crystal Dynamics want to achieve. First worth mentioning is that if you’re watching someone play Rise of the Tomb Raider via the Xbox One Twitch app, you’ll be rewarded ingame currency for your own game. Secondly, any streamer with Expedition Mode activated and streaming via Twitch will be subject to the influence of Expedition cards. Every 6 minutes, viewers will get to vote on one of two expedition cards which will affect the streamer’s game. Cards range from the straightforward difficulty enhancing ones (making ammo scarce or enemies tougher), to ones that make the game easier (enemies randomly kill themselves in a blaze of fire when attacking the player) or silly (big head mode, anyone?).
The effect of these cards will last for 5 minutes in-game, or until the player dies. There’s a total of 64 cards to vote from, which means every stream will be rather unique and unpredictable. The game’s executive producer, Scot Amos, explained that “By partnering with Twitch we’ve created a unique interaction loop that rewards viewers who influence a streamer’s game real-time, and have simultaneously given streamers a new game play experience thanks to viewer-driven decisions!”.
You can read up on the subject on the official press release here, as well as dive deeper into the details via a detailed FAQ section.
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