“The Lab” – January 2011 Schedule

Welcome everyone to 2011 and a brand new of year of “The Lab” in UNCHARTED 2 Multiplayer!

If you’ve been playing UNCHARTED 2 multiplayer for the past six or so months, you may recognize episodes of “The Lab” we’ve listed below for January. As the studio continues to work feverishly on our next game, UNCHARTED 3, we’ll be easing up on the workload of our game designers so they can kick ass at making UNCHARTED 3 multiplayer awesome. We will help them out by focusing “The Lab” more on gametype variations we have already tested and deployed successfully. While this means we won’t be able to explore some of the hundreds of gametype and playlist suggestions you’ve given us, we’ve been able to map out our schedule for “The Lab,” Double (or greater) Cash Weekends and even some updates to the Playlists for the forseeable future.

We’re still dedicated to making an effort to keep things fresh with UNCHARTED 2 multiplayer during 2011 and we hope you continue to join us during all our multiplayer events!

If you’re new to “The Lab,” welcome! “The Lab” is a special playlist we will be running for a limited time on designated weekends, roughly every other weekend. You can access “The Lab” playlist within the set of playlists found in Matchmaking in UNCHARTED 2 multiplayer. During each weekend “The Lab” is active, we’ll be running a specialized playlist featuring one or more custom-tuned gametype variations from the tons of variables we can tweak in our multiplayer gameplay settings.

As always, we’ll be hosting a new thread for every "The Lab" episode on the Naughty Dog community forums to get your feedback and thoughts on each one of our “The Lab” events.

“The Lab” episodes for January are:

January 14 – 18
No Power Weapons
Regular old Team Deathmatch, but think twice if you think you can just make a rush at the start of the match for the power weapon(s) – you’ll come up empty handed, and probably with a face full of lead from the opposing team. All of the active maps during this episode of “The Lab” have been wiped clean of the Desert – 5, Dragon Sniper, Moss – 12, SAS – 12, Pistole, RPG – 7, GAU – 19, and the M32 – Hammer. That leaves you and your skills with the AK47, M4, FAL, 92FS – 9MM, and Micro – 9MM to dominate the games. Grenades are also active during this episode of “The Lab.”

To kick off 2011, this first episode of “The Lab” is also a 3x Cash weekend! There’s more – “The Lab” will run one day longer, until Tuesday, January 18, in observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day federal holiday here in the United States.

January 28 – 31
Sniper Extermination
This variation to a Elimination gametype hasn’t been seen since its original run back in June 2010 and didn’t make our “Best of…” list. If you weren’t with us back in June, think Elimination – you’re out for the round as soon as you’ve been taken out by the other team – but with Sniper rifles ONLY.