Ham Warfare

Ham Warfare is a currently indev Roblox game created by Akimbo Game Studios and published by steve's bread basket. The game was announced in a cryptic marketing campaign, described as a "marketing stunt" pulled by lead developers exrahs and s0ybean. It was formally announced on October 6th, 2020, and the full game was released on October 30th, 2020. The release was originally scheduled for November 30th of the same year, later being moved ahead to October 30th. Prior to the official announcement, Ham Game was the community-given title, and exrahs stated "Capture the Ham was the original, working title for [Ham Warfare], but we needed something that pertained a bit more to the storyline."

Announcement and Release
Akimbo took a rather interesting covert, cryptic approach to this announcement. Not much was originally known about Ham Warfare, only that its development was underway, a full reveal was planned for Halloween 2020 (which happened much ahead of schedule), and its release was projected for the Holidays of the same year. exrahs told an unknown source that a game was in development at Akimbo, but he was unspecific about whether or not the so-called "ham hints" had any correlation to the game. Later, on October 6th 2020 at 10:47 AM, a trailer was released claiming that the "truth of the ham" was to be revealed on Halloween 2020. According to an anonymous source, in a Discord server owned by exrahs and moderated in part by s0ybean, numerous channels were spammed with messages related to ham prior to the trailer's release. Examples include "Ham is smarter, Ham is faster," "that’s the answer to what everyone should expect this coming holiday season-- Ham." and "holiday season... chernobyl... ihop... all connected to ham..." There was also frequent usage of the simple, yet menacing message stating only "ham." with little to no context. Many messages appeared in the coming hours, being sent by exrahs and s0ybean. They were messages stating that three seemingly random and unrelated people, places, things, or ideas were connected somehow (examples include "genghis khan... aloe vera... teriyaki chicken... ive figured it all out..." and "cream of wheat... los angeles... william shakespeare... ive drawn the lines..."). The frequent usage of the number 47 also garnered suspicion.

On October 6th at 3:47 PM, exactly 5 hours after the cryptic "Ham is eternal" trailer, Akimbo jumped the gun and revealed the game to be Ham Warfare. "we have been working on something," exrahs said minutes prior to the announcement, "something truly revolutionary in the world of ham. with the hard work we've been putting in over the last few days for potentially the most useless thing ever to exist, im finally able to make the announcement." When inquired about the game being revealed only 5 hours after Akimbo set Halloween as the reveal date, exrahs said that there was "reason to believe that someone had insider info about [Ham Warfare]." Akimbo's thought process was described as "better to announce it ourselves than be pressured by some a**hole." Details and a single screenshot were provided with the reveal, but much was changed by the time that the alpha phase was launched.

The alpha phase was released on the 6th, with only one map called Oasis and 4 weapons. It was released on PC and mobile. Contrary to Akimbo's statement regarding a paid access, a representative for the company stated "Ultimately, we've decided to allow everyone to play the alpha version of the game for free, no payment whatsoever. It's like going to buy ice cream: you're going to have to pay for it, but they might give you a free sample of the flavors so you can get a taste."

It was announced on October 19th that, thanks to both the hard work of the developers and the amazing support from the fans, the Ham Warfare release date was being moved up to Halloween of 2020, October 30th. On the same day, exrahs denied the Xbox version rumors, saying "just gonna dispel a rumor here: no, ham warfare will not be on xbox." During a conversation about the Xbox version of the game, exrahs also said "no xbox version planned, not for now. maybe our next game tho ;)" This leaves the door open for an Xbox port of what could very well be Ham Warfare 2.

At about 12:50 AM Eastern Time on October 20th, all servers were shut down for the alpha version of the game following the announcement of the beta release the next day, October 21st. The beta released the next day as expected, and ran for 5 days (until October 26th) before being closed to finalize development for the full release of the game. Akimbo confirmed that access to the beta version of the game would be paid, but they went with a different approach: instead of making access to the game paid, they released a 200-Robux game pass that served as a donation to Akimbo. There were plans to give pass owners exclusive items in the future. If you purchased the pass during the beta, it is not necessary to purchase it again in the full game. The full version of the game is completely free to play, albeit with "small, non-essential microtransactions."

On October 30th at around 8:00am, s0ybean announced that the game hasn't been further delayed and would release at 12pm. And on that day at 12pm Eastern Time, Ham Warfare was released in full. It released with a new map, Casino, as well as updates to UI, bug and glitch fixes, balancing corrections, new features, and other changes, adjustments, and additions. This was met with good reactions from players and reviewers alike.

Development
Development was rumored to have started in July, but this was later dispelled by s0ybean who said that the first version of the game was made 2 days prior to the announcement of Ham Warfare. exrahs stated that Akimbo had a development schedule in place for the official release. Akimbo expressed interest in making Ham Warfare a "games-as-a-service" game, but this is unconfirmed.

"Ham Warfare was originally going to be a 4 player, free for all, capture the flag mix type game," exrahs cited. "We then found that to be problematic in terms of mechanics and coding, so we reverted to our backup plan, which was a team deathmatch game. We tooled around for a little while, and ultimately decided that a capture the flag game was an ideal start." Map design was never an issue, with exrahs stating that s0ybean was very good at that aspect of game development. "The UI is where we've run into some trouble," exrahs told Tag's Tablet. He said that despite the technical issues Akimbo is experiencing, the in-game UI is "priority number one."

Reception
The game, upon release, was received very well by most reviewers and critics. Many cited the good gunplay, well-designed maps, competitive gameplay, and strong message against terrorism as reasons to play the game. Tag's Tablet stated, "The gunplay is formidable. Nothing above average, nothing below. It's designed well, with no hit detection issues or anything. The (currently small) pool of maps are very intricately designed, and are made to accompany the competitive nature of Ham Warfare. And the subtle, yet powerful message on anti-terrorism is a very good and effective feature." The negativity from the reviews cited the small pool of maps, lack of weapon variety, and a controversy pertaining to the over-the-top depiction of violence in the game. One source stated, "Akimbo has made a game with potential here, I'll give them that. But that potential needs to be used and expanded upon, most importantly with a wider map and weapon selection that other games of Ham Warfare's genre already have." Another source stated, "The depictions of violence in Ham Warfare are crossing the line. It needs to be toned down to be a playable game for me." Overall on Metacritic, Ham Warfare scored a Metascore of 84, with a user score of 9.1.Citation needed.

Akimbo's Response
In the days following the release, Akimbo responded to both positive and negative critical reviews. "Thank you all for the love and support for Ham Warfare," their official statement read, "it means so much to us. For those of you that gave us good reviews, we appreciate it. We worked hard on the 'great gunplay,' 'well-designed maps,' 'competitive nature,' and 'subtle, yet powerful message on anti-terrorism' we have in Ham Warfare today. I feel like this game is representative of our hard work, it ended up being good. For those of you who gave us negative reviews, thank you for the feedback and we'll see what we can do. I would like to address the two biggest points that negative reviewers brought up. We plan to expand upon the map and weapon variety, and we're working hard on that as we speak. And the depictions of violence that are 'crossing the line' will not be changed. And to anyone who gets upset at that, all I can offer you is a big, fat 'too bad.' The 'over-the-top depictions of violence' may not be pretty, but they show the realism of terrorist attacks, and why we need to prevent them. It contributes to the message we're trying to send, so we've decided to stand strong and keep it in-game despite the negative press covfefe."

Gameplay
The gameplay, on a basic level is very standard: it's a 4v4 capture the flag game, first to three points wins. But when you really look into it, the gameplay is still pretty standard.

System Requirements
The system requirements were given to beta testers and have remained the same for the full release. The PC system requirements are as follows."PC Minimum Sys Req""CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 645 / Intel Core i3-3225""GPU: GeForce GTX 660 (2GB VRAM) / Radeon HD 7850 (2GB VRAM)""RAM: 4GB RAM"The mobile system requirements are as follows."Mobile Minimum Sys Req""iPhone: 7, 7 plus, or better""iPad: Air 2, Mini 4, or better""Android: Compatible on most"

Maps
Main article: Maps in Ham Warfare

There are currently 3 maps available in-game. Thanks to dataminers and vague confirmations from Akimbo Game Studios, there are several other maps in development and set to be released, plus one cancelled map. The maps for the game are as follows.

Available maps

 * Oasis
 * Mall
 * Casino

Indev maps

 * A Christmas map called either "Cabin" or "Ski Lodge"
 * Unnamed map

Cancelled maps

 * Plaza

Weapons
Main article: Weapons in Ham Warfare

Ham Warfare is taking a unique approach to loadouts: instead of making them fully customizable like Call of Duty or Battlefield, or giving guns to specific people like Rainbow Six Siege, each map has its own assigned loadout. In the words of Akimbo, "This unique perspective is meant to create a more balanced, skill-based environment for the game: instead of everyone playing the easiest or most overpowered guns, players have to make do with what they're given and adapt to the situation."

Currently, there is a small variety of weapons available, but Akimbo has confirmed that they plan to expand the selection. The current loadout selection is as follows.

Assault Rifles

 * AK-47
 * AK-74m
 * R4-C
 * M4A1

Submachine Guns

 * MP5
 * MP7
 * MPX
 * Scorpion Evo 3
 * Vector .45

Shotguns

 * SPAS-15
 * M1014 (possibly)

Sniper Rifles

 * AWP
 * Intervention

Pistols

 * Beretta 92FS


 * Glock 18
 * Five-seveN

Grenade Launchers

 * Present Launcher

Staff
The staff working on the game and their credited roles are listed here.


 * exrahs (head developer, lead content design, gameplay director, programmer)
 * sour_s0ybean (assistant developer, lead map design, creative director)
 * TagTheFlag (map design and programmer)
 * Bison_BIZON (map design)
 * xLionBlox (map design)

Campaign
There is confirmation that a campaign is also in development for Ham Warfare. This is all we know so far, but we'll get more info as time goes on.

Rating
The Akimbo Sauce Rating Board (ASRB) has determined that Ham Warfare is rated VS for Very Saucy. The content descriptors applied to Ham Warfare are Blood, Gore, and Intense Violence. This is due to the presence of blood splatters on walls, decapitated corpses, and other violent depictions in the game's maps. Players cannot lose body parts, only corpses in the game's atmosphere. There are frequent devastatingly-gory terrorist attacks depicted across the game, but players themselves cannot partake in these events.

Rumors
Rumors prior to the announcement of the game suggested that Ham Warfare was a third person shooter, team deathmatch/free for all game. Some sources claim it's a 4v4 deathmatch, while others claim it's a 4 player free for all. The only rumor that was proved true by the alpha phase was the third person shooter one. The HW Alpha launched with only a 4v4, team-based, capture the flag mode.

There were also rumors circulating of an Xbox version of the game in development, to be dropped soon after the PC and mobile releases. These rumors were dispelled by exrahs on the Akimbo Game Studios Roblox group wall.

Sequel Rumors
On November 1st, 2020, Bernie Sanders supposedly took to Twitter to announce that he had "inside information" about a Ham Warfare sequel in development.Citation needed. The tweet is no longer viewable, suggesting that it was either deleted, or the tweet was fake.

Trivia

 * The release of October 30th was erroneously referred to as "Halloween" by exrahs. He later made a statement saying "i would also like to say im sorry for referring to the release date of october 30th as halloween, i legitimately thought halloween was on the 30th because i am moron"
 * The original title for Ham Warfare was Capture The Ham.

Update History

 * Alpha v1.0a (October 6th, 2020)
 * Alpha v1.1a (October 8th, 2020)
 * Alpha v1.1.2a (October 16th, 2020)
 * Beta v1.0b (October 21st, 2020)
 * Beta v1.1b - "Day-One Patch" (October 21st, 2020)
 * Beta v1.2b (October 24th, 2020)
 * Ham Warfare v1.0 - Full Release (October 30th, 2020)
 * Ham Warfare v1.0.1 (December 2nd, 2020)
 * Ham Warfare v1.1 (December 20th, 2020)