Defiance‘s next major content patch will be arriving this Thursday, May 23rd. In this 1.020 patch we will be receiving an assortment of TV show crossover content that will be made available in the coming weeks as well as the new open world Siege modes and the return of Freight Yard for once and for all. The servers will also be getting a solid amount of performance improvements and voice chat improvements. Additionally, there will be a large amount of bug fixes, balance adjustments, and overall gameplay and UI improvements in this patch. Keep reading for the full list of patch notes, which was made available in this thread on the official forums yesterday.

Patch 1.020 – Buckshot (Stay on Target)

GENERAL
● Along with numerous improvements and bug fixes, this update also includes new content that will tie in with recent and future events around the Defiance TV show. This content will be released alongside new episodes. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, we’ve omitted specifics, but it includes new missions, new goals, and a new open world game mode called Sieges!
● We’ve continued to optimize areas around the game world to improve performance.
● Even more updates to improve server performance.
● Continued to optimize voice chat options and functionality. You should hear less robo-voice, stuttering, warbling, and slurring.
● The PvP map, Freight Yard, is back!
● The Dam Defense Hotshot is available again.

MISSIONS
● Added new checkpoints to KTAM and Murder Island.
● Moved the Mount Tam mission offer animus for ‘A.R.M. the Troops.’ Players could sometimes see it on the map but not get the mission.
● Fixed the endlessly respawning Raiders at Verdant Ridge.

CHALLENGES
● Rebalanced Hotshot and Rampage medal score tiers.
● Corrected rewards given out for the Challenges in Marin.
● Killing yourself no longer successfully completes Challenges.

EMERGENCIES
● Moved an emergency in Marin that was blocking a Time Trial route.
● Moved an emergency in Madera away from an extraction point.
● Set Completion Text to play at end of fight instead of when props despawn for the following Emergencies: Hostage Situation, Hijacked Vehicles, Raider Roadblock, Dark Matter E-Rep Firefight, and Mutant Search Party.
● Added EGO voiceover after completion of the following Emergencies: Mutant Search Party, Dark Matter Camp, and Hijacked Vehicles.
● Removed timer display at the end of ‘Caught in the Crossfire.’
● Optimized and fixed some pathing issues in ‘Blockade.’
● Fixed a truck that had an odd rotation in Sausalito.
● Fixed some floating objects in Marin Emergencies.
● Fixed a bug that caused trucks to not despawn after ‘Dark Matter Camp.’

ARKFALLS
● Optimization addressed to fix flickering or disappearing enemies at arkfalls.
● General balance tuning for Hellbug Destroy Arkfalls.
● General balance tuning for Scrapper Destroy Arkfalls.
● General balance tuning for Mutant Destroy Arkfalls.
● Added additional rewards and increased the chance to get weapons instead of grenades from Major Arkfalls.

PLAYER CHARACTER
● Nano effects that kill your character should now be cleared after extracting.
● Fixed cameras while incapacitated so that the camera won’t clip through the character if the player looks up.

ENEMIES AND NPCs
● Monarchs now cause vehicles to explode when collided with.
● Smelters in the Jackleg Joe fight will alert properly on spawn regardless of player position in the arena.
● Friendly Scrapper Forges will now spawn friendly Nanites.
● Friendly Scrappers now have blue effects to distinguish them from hostile Scrappers.

COMPETITIVE MULTIPLAYER
● Fixed several bugs that were causing multiplayer matchmaking crashes.
● Fixed a crash when exiting a multiplayer match.
● Fixed a bug with matchmaking main menu not functioning properly when changing worlds.

CO-OP AND SOLO MAPS
● Swapped and deleted a few objects in ‘Soleptor Excavation’, ‘Scrapworks Salvage’, ‘Liberate the Lost’, and ‘Explosions 101’ to improve performance.
● Fixed an issue that caused an EGO voiceover to play out of order in ‘Island of Lost Soldiers.’
● Fixed a tilted ammo cache in ‘The Motherlode.’
● Fix for Soleptor Excavation to prevent players from falling through the world if they defeat the final boss while standing on a spawn door.
● Fixed an issue that could prevent players from entering ‘Commandeer Cronkhite.’

WEAPONS
● Continued to tune weapons to improve balance.
● The 10% EGO power recharge on full reload weapon bonus now has a cooldown.
● Legendary Detonators will no longer be able to have mag size weapon bonuses.
● Reduced rate of fire for the Auto Lobber.
● Reduced damage per shot for the Crash Boomer, Rebound Lobber, and Auto Lobber.
● Gaining or losing a status effect as you finish reloading will no longer cause the reload to cancel and start again.
● Fixed an issue in which the Ground Pounder stats were appearing as zero
● Nano-Effect Resist shields and shields with other special effects will now start dropping at a lower power rating.
● Mods that show up as vendor specials will now be higher quality.
● Mods given as rewards from Challenges will now be higher quality.
● Synergy weapon mod caches purchased from vendors should now include a wider variety of synergy types.
● Significant Shotgun Tuning
• Shotguns are being tuned to bring them in line with the other weapons and personalities we want to obtain with each type of shotgun.
• Mag Size Changes: We have made changes to the mag size of all bonus size mods and rarity bonuses. This was largely due to shotguns getting a more shots per magazine then intended.
1. Rarity Bonuses that increased Mag Size have been decreased.
2. Clip Mods that increased Mag Size have been decreased.

• Elemental Proc Chance Change: We discovered that the shotguns were procing per pellet at the full proc chance. This caused the shotguns to have a much higher chance to proc the elemental effect then other weapons.
1. Changed the proc chance per pellet of shotguns. (Excluding Slug based shotguns)

• These two types of Shotguns are being tuned to bring them in line with the other shotguns.
1. Rate of Fire change for the Vot Auto Fragger: We have made this change due to speed at which a player could kill its intended target. This weapon now has slightly lower rate of fire to bring it in line with the other Combat Shotguns.
2. Recoil Increase in the TACC Auto-Shotgun: This change was to add a bit more variance in the recoil with the amount of shells it could shoot from its high mag capacity.

LOOT AND AMMO
● Tuned loot drops for several enemies.
● Looks like Murray dropped off an ammo crate near his docks.

VEHICLES
● Tweaked vehicle physics so they don’t feel quite as bouncy.
● The T4 Titan (mission only vehicle) is no longer invulnerable.
● Store Vehicles now have proper titles denoting tier.
● Fixed an issue in which vehicle stats were appearing as zeros when available as a vendor special.
● Fixed an issue in which your vehicle might be invisible in extremely crowded locations.
● Fixed an issue that caused vehicles to bounce abnormally off some objects.
● Vehicles were being used as weapons with very little risk, so we’ve increased the amount of damage that colliding with enemies does to vehicles to increase that risk.

VENDORS
● Titles are now available at hidden vendors.

DEFIANCE STORE
● Fixed an issue that prevented purchasing of more than one inventory slot upgrade at a time.
● Updated Bit purchase UI to help clarify the amount of bonus Bits included in the larger Bit packs.

EGO ABILITIES AND PERKS
● Reduced effectiveness of the Fortitude perk.
● Fixed the Pumped Up perk so that the gameplay effect matches the description.

ACHIEVEMENTS, PURSUITS AND CONTRACTS
● ‘Save Your Ganchis’ achievement can now be completed.
● ‘101 Keys’ pursuit can now be completed.
● Paradise Daily ‘Explosions 101’ contract can now be completed.
● Fixed an issue that caused mutants at the South Radio Tower not to count towards the ‘Atlas Attrition’ contract.
● Fixed “Equip a [weapon type]” pursuit objectives to trigger off equipping mission rewards.

CINEMATICS
● Continued to polish existing cut scenes.
● Added new cut scenes for episodic story lines.

AUDIO
● Polish for combat music timing.
● Increased Nim’s voice over radius.

USER INTERFACE
● Continued UI polish and bug fixing.
● Added new notifications for players who reach certain EGO ratings without ever using some features such as the social menu, shadow war, competitive multiplayer, co-op maps, and clans.
● Area and region names now appear on the map and fade in and out when zooming the map.
● Searching for a player will now display clan, EGO rating, and their location if they are online.
● Voice settings now save between logouts.
● Added a time and date display below the mini-map.
● Turning remapping on/off will no longer wipe out remappings
● Inventory listing will mark which items are in loadouts other than the current one
● Remove Ctrl+Q from quitting game
● Show inventory at vehicle merchants will list your current vehicles so you can compare them to the ones in the store
● Requirements are now displayed on the CO-OP matchmaking screen.
● New option in Salvage Matrix to reset weapon mastery points.
● Fixed ark salvage spam when exiting menus if you broke down a lot of items in the salvage matrix
● Fixed a map icon at the overpass that disappeared whenever the player was phased.
● Fixed an issue that caused character creation to not always start properly.
● Fixed an issue that sometimes caused mission objective radii to not show up on the mini-map.
● Fixed an issue that caused /whisper text chat messages not to work.
● Fixed an issue that caused the map cursor to shift.

MISCELANEOUS
● Added fast travel point near Coit Tower.
● Optimized ‘Go to Friend’ and ‘Teleport to Shadow War’ functionality.

PC
● Menu wheel now displays automatically when opening the EGO Menu.
● Fixed handling of duplicate account logins on PC.
● Fixed bugs in the login queue.
● Fixed client startup crash when Steam is in offline mode.

XBOX 360
● Kinect Help menu messaging is much more approachable.
● Fixed some Xbox 360 frame rate issues near bodies of water.

PLAYSTATION 3
● Fixed an issue that prevented back to back logins.

We get started with a chase scene through the streets of Defiance. The Castithan that is being chased falls down, but tosses out a little mini grenade sort of thing to distract everyone so he can get away. His plan works up till the point where Nolan tackles him. The guy chasing the Castithan catches up and recognizes Nolan. The fought together and are old friends. His name is Eddie and he’s a bounty hunter.

They take the Castithan bounty to the jailhouse. Doc Yewll tends to the Castithan who starts talking to her. He asks if the humans know what she did during the Pale Wars. He know what she did and says he was a big fan. She says that he must have her confused with someone else and leaves. We do learn that the Castithan is named Paul Mattis and he is a weapons designer. He’s wanted by the Earth Republic for war crimes.

Nolan talks with Mayor Amanda about what to do with Paul. He wants to allow his friend to be able to collect on the bounty, but she wants justice for the people he hurt in town with his grenade type weapon. Also she doesn’t trust Eddie.

Meanwhile a little packet of yellow powder is dropped through the window into Paul’s cell. He picks it up and hides it. Once he gets some food he says it’s dry and asks for some salt and water. We know something is up, but just not sure what it is yet.

In the McCawley household, we see Rafe talking to his son Quentin. Quentin lets him know that the ex-mayor was asking questions about the book he was reading about the symbols they found in the mines. Rafe is starting to think that the artifact is nothing but trouble. He feels Luke was killed because of it, so Quentin would be best served if he just through it down one of the holes in the mine.

BOOM! Explosion at the jailhouse and you guessed it, Paul escaped. They figure out from the small bits of yellow dust everywhere that he must of used a compound that becomes explosive when adding salt and water to it. Nolan goes and finds Eddie to accuse him of helping Paul escape. Eddie convinces him that he had nothing to do with it. So Nolan enlists Eddie’s help to find Paul.

The representative from the Earth Republic shows up in Amanda’s office to talk about taking the prisoner back with them. Amanda recognizes the guy as Cameron. You can tell they have some sort of history together. Since Defiance isn’t in the Earth Republic’s jurisdiction, she wants to bargain with them for turning over Paul Mattis.

Datak walks into his own house only to find Paul cooking some Castithan traditional meals there. Paul has heard that Datak is loyal to the Voltan Collective and that’s why he’s there to ask for his help to get to Brazil where he’ll be safe. But before talking over specifics he wants Datak to eat some of the fine cuisine he’s put together. Datak is nervous and seems to want to not help Paul. He manages to pull a gun on Paul. Paul takes control of the situation by turning a dial on his ring. This causes Datak to fall to the ground, dropping the gun. Paul had slipped something into Datak’s food that reacts to the high pitched frequency from his ring and causes great pain.

Quentin is down in the mine about to throw away the artifact, when his older brother Luke kind of appears. I say kind of because as you may remember, he died in the first episode. Quentin doesn’t looking at him, but is able to hear him. Luke tell him to hold onto the artifact.

Nolan and Eddie are doing door-to-door checks to see if they can find Paul. They arrive at Datak’s place. Paul hides, but not before warning Datak to not try anything. Datak lets them in and allows them to look around, but they don’t find Paul. Datak wishes them a good day on their way out. Paul is please with how Datak handled everything.

We cut to Datak driving an old black convertible with Paul in the passenger seat. They are trying to figure a way to sneak Paul past one of the roadblocks. Out of nowhere, Nolan’s roller shows up and runs them off the road. Datak asks Nolan how he knew to follow them. Nolan says it was because Datak was being nice, so he knew something was wrong.

Nolan sends Datak on his way then gives Paul over to Eddie to be able to collect the bounty from E-Rep. Paul starts saying how he will enjoy his new housing and will even get a brand new laboratory to continue his research for the Voltan Collective. Nolan figures out that Eddie was planning on turning Paul over to the Voltans and he will be making weapons for them to use in war. He can’t allow that. He can’t talk Eddie into changing his mind. So he feels he’s left with no other option and pulls out his gun and shoots Paul between the eyes.

Eddie pulls his gun and says that if he can’t collect on Paul, then he’ll collect on the quarter million bounty on Nolan for what he stole from Varrus. Eddie is also mad that he took the fall for what he did to let Nolan and Irisa to get away and have a life together. Eddie spent 6 year in jail. Nolan is able to take the gun away from Eddie, but says he has a right to be mad and that he owes him. So Nolan is going to let Eddie turn him in to Varrus, but he has to say Irisa is dead.

Cameron and the rest of the E-rep guys show up only to find Paul dead. Nolan starts to explain, but Eddie jumps in and says he did it and gives himself up. He’s taking the fall because he knows Nolan has a daughter to raise and he know Nolan would do the same for him.

The ex-mayor’s helper is going through stuff in the McCawley house when Quentin ends up coming in. The guy gets the drop on Quentin and shocks him in the neck dropping him to the ground and takes the artifact out of Quentin’s pocket. Quentin comes to and is able to get the guy to the floor and starts choking him. Luke shows up again and tells Quentin that he’s stronger than he thinks and tells him not to let up. Quentin ends up killing the guy.

At the end of the episode we get the musical montage that wraps up a few loose ends. Quentin dumps the body into the mine, Amanda get flowers from Cameron and Eddie is seen shackled and traveling in the back of a vehicle headed to Las Vegas. He slyly pulls a small packet of yellow powder out of his boot and says he’s getting dehydrated and could use some water and salt tablets.

So that does it for the episode, but I’m thinking of what this might mean in the game. Last week we had and outlaw in Rynn heading to San Francisco and probably going to be causing havoc. This week we have a bounty hunter in Eddie traveling west. It would be interesting to see interactions of Eddie trying to capture Rynn with your help of course. If you do end up capturing her, don’t expect Eddie to split any of the money with you.

It’s mail call time in Defiance and everyone is excited. While most people are getting letters and packages, Nolan is getting ready to escort Rynn to Las Vegas Prison. He’s also guarding the city’s money that Amanda will using to get a train line going through Defiance. Amanda comes across and E-Rep Ambassador that she’s been ignoring correspondence from because she doesn’t want anything to do with the E-Reps. The Ambassador and her two husbands will be traveling with Nolan and Amanda. The only other passenger is a bible salesman.

Meanwhile, Irisa sees someone she thinks she knows. She follow the mystery man into the bar and keeps an eye on him. When he leaves out the back, she confronts him and knocks him out. When he awakes, he’s strapped to a chair in a basement or something. Irisa says she know who he is and she’s going to torture him like he did to her when she was a little girl. He says she’s got the wrong person, he’s just a traveling salesman of trinkets.

While Nolan, Amanda and others are riding along, there’s an explosion in the driver’s cab and the vehicle comes to a stop. Nolan opens up the back doors and sees a couple rollers coming up and figures out they are getting jacked. The bible salesman reveals he’s the one behind the explosion and takes the towns money. A shootout ensues. One of the Ambassador’s husbands is shot and killed, the bible salesman is shot in the leg, but he was able to take the Ambassador as a hostage.

Back to Irisa, she is walking through town heading back to her torture basement carrying a bag. Tommy the deputy sees her, thinks something might be up and follows her. Once inside she shows the mystery man that she brought a snake to torture him with. Tommy shows up and tries to stop her. She ends up handcuffing him. Tommy does ask how she knows this is the person that tortured her as a child. She knows his smell. She recognized one of the trinkets in his bag as a symbol he used. She says he has the same twitch under his eye. The mystery man, closes his eyes and challenges her to tell him the color of his eyes. She says blue. He opens his eyes to reveal that they are orange. She lets the snake bite him anyway.

Night has fallen and Nolan, Amanda, Rynn and the surviving husband are in a standoff with the bible salesman who says he will trade the Ambassador for the town’s money. Nolan decides he will go make the trade, but believes one of the salesman’s cohorts will try to gun him down from atop one of the hills. She he tells Amanda to sneak out while he distracts them and to take out the guy on the hill. Nolan hands over the briefcase of money and the Ambassador heads back to the disabled vehicle. The salesman is going through the briefcase and sees that under the money on top is just a bunch of bibles. He’s upset that Nolan tricked him, he pulls a gun and Nolan pulls out one he had hidden. Nolan gets the shot off first and takes down the salesman while Amanda takes down the guy on the hill that was about to shoot Nolan. Nolan tries to find out who hired him to make to steal the money. He won’t tell Nolan, and dies.

While all this was going on Rynn had picked up a paper clip during the first shootout and picks the locks on her handcuffs and shackles. The surviving husband sees what’s going on and she threatens to slit his throat, so he sits quietly while she slips away. Once Nolan, Amanda and the ambassador get back to the vehicle, they create a camp fire and get water and keys from the bad guys rollers. Just when they think they made it through a pretty rough day, the ambassador pulls a gun and says she’s taking the money and killing Nolan and Amanda. She gets richer, Defiance has to rely on E-Rep to get a train and she will even get a promotion. She even reveals that she set the whole charade up. Just as she’s about to take out Nolan and Amanda, the Ambassador is hit in the throat by some kind of weapon and drops her gun. Rynn shows up and takes the guy. She’s taking a roller and says she will kill anyone who tries to follow her. The husband asks if he can go with her to the next town, since the Ambassador planned on killing him too. When asked why she came back, Rynn replied, ” A man who risks his life for another cannot be left to die.”

When we get back to Irisa torture basement, the mystery man says the snake’s bite has given him clarity and he starts confessing. He was following the prophecies to find the Chosen One. He had told Irisa’s parents that she was special and he wanted to see if she was the one he was looking for. The freely gave her up and were even there to watch as he tortured her because he said it was needed to make her embrace her true nature. She was the only one who was able to survive all of the things put potential girls through. Her final action to kill a person that was a sacrifice. As they were about to make her do it, Nolan and others blast through the door and shoot down most of the people in the room, including her parents. The mystery man was able to slip away. He now realizes why he was brought to Defiance, he is the sacrifice for her to fulfill the prophecy. She decides that she will uncuff Tommy and let him arrest him. Tommy takes the opportunity to start beating the crap out of the man. Irisa has to stop him. Irisa decides to just let him go. Tommy is confused by this, but she says that for him to return back to his boring life and being unsuccessful in his Messiah search would be the worst punishment of all.

Nolan and Amanda are back in Defiance and they are sending the handcuffed Ambassador on her way to the Las Vegas jail. An officer leads her on to the transport vehicle. Once they are inside, the officer removes the handcuffs and apologizes saying it had to be done to keep up appearances. The ambassador now has it out for Amanda and wants to do whatever she can to take her and Defiance down.

In our final scenes we get to see Irisa and Tommy in the Lawkeeper’s office. She asks why he start taking it to the guy and he says he’s not the only one that has nightmares. They take a few beats to stare deeply into each other’s eyes, and start ripping their clothes off and going at it.

That about does it for this week. We didn’t get to see Datak or Stahma and only got a couple of scenes with Alak and Christie. I think Rafe had a cameo on the street, but that was about it. Also no Kenya and it’s been a couple episodes now without seeing Doc Yewll. But I guess that it’s better that they do some deeper stories on a few characters rather doing a bunch of shallow story lines and cramming everyone in to every episode. Once again, another solid episode that didn’t disappoint.

In yesterday’s letter to the community posted by Nathan Richardsson, Executive Producer of Defiance, one very interesting set of details was announced– the contents of the first upcoming Defiance DLC (downloadable content) pack. The release date for this first DLC pack, which is being tentatively called “Enter the Castithan”, has not been announced yet, but we do know that there will be three types of content added: Paid DLC content that will set players back $10 unless they have purchased the Season Pass, free DLC content that will be available to all players, and additional, optional in-game store content.

And yes, our first new playable race will be the Castithans! Castithan fans celebrate! So, what other types of content are we going to see? Let’s check it out. Keep reading to take a look.

You get this when you buy the DLC for $10:
– Access to play the Castithan Species
– Access to a new Story Mission Line with new Battle Arena Game Mode
– Access to the new Castithan Battle Arenas
– Castithan Charge Blade & Ceremonial Mask as a reward from Story Mission Line
– A unique version of the Raptor, a new 4 player truck of doom
– A unique Castithan version of an outfit
– A Charge Weapons Starter Pack
– Access to New Pursuits
– New Xbox and PS3 Trophies and Achievements

You get this in the DLC for free:
– Access to the new Charge Weapons Class and Castithan Blades
– Access to Sieges, a new Open World Game Mode
– Access to the new Monolith Major Arkfall
– Access to a new PvP Map – Military Academy
– Join a friend into the Battle Arenas Game Mode
– Duel your friends and neighbors in the Duels Game Mode
– Enemies, lockboxes, and events can drop Charge Weapons
– Select a new voice for you character
– Multitude of game improvements from UI to content

You can buy these individually from the store:
– New Mods that tint the color of your Castithan Blade
– Lockboxes have a chance to get Charge Weapons
– More versions of the Raptor, the new 4 player truck of doomed compensation
– Character Customization changes: Appearance change, name change, or everything change

Trion’s goal seems to be to push new, optional story content as well as new races through paid DLC content while allowing all players to take part in new multiplayer maps, PvP activities, and gameplay options together. Nathan Richardsson also touched on other improvements that will be made in the weeks to come along with his personal thoughts on the game’s state as a whole. Check out the full letter here.

Defiance Junkies is looking to add a few more enthusiastic, talented writers to join our team.

All that we ask is that you’re a true fan of the game and/or show and can show us that you know a thing or two about writing. You’re more than welcome to set your own schedule and write whenever you feel inspired.

If you have any questions or would like to apply to become a writer for Junkies Nation and Defiance Junkies, please feel free to contact Jason at dreagon@rerollz.net or John at johnp@rerollz.com. Make sure to have a writing sample handy when you contact us!

We are also looking for writers for Elder Scrolls Online site, so if you or anyone you know is as pumped as we are for its release, please get in touch or share this article with them!

We start off getting to see a guy who is getting ready to go for a jog. When everything we see is always dirty and gritty, this guy pulls out his pristine red running shoes. He obviously loves to run. Unfortunately, he’s about to die doing what he loves. All we can see is movement in the tall grass that keeps getting closer to him until he’s attacked and killed. For some reason I thought,  ”if he was driving a Dodge, he might still be alive.” Trion’s advertising must be having an effect on me.

The Spirit Riders are in town acting like a bad motorcycle gang. Irisa, as a deputy lawkeeper, has to step in and diffuse a situation between Sukar, leader of the Spirit Riders, with his ‘daughter’ Rynn and a local shopkeeper. Sukar tells Irisa that the offer is still open to join with them. She gets called away to check out the crime scene of the jogger.

At the crime scene we find out that the victim was a local baker named Dalton Tagert. They may not say it yet, but we all know that it has to be Hellbugs that killed him. Irisa sees a butterfly and has some sort of vision/flashback or something. It’s the 2nd time it’s happened this episode. Not sure what to make of it yet.

Mayor Amanda is meeting with Sukar, to try to ask him to have the Spirit Riders be a little less aggressive around town. He finally agrees to have his people assimilate with the people of Defiance, until they decided to turn on the Irathians like it happened in the past.

At the Need Want, the local whore house & bar, the owner Kenya is “working” on one of her customers. They discuss the safe word and then things get hot and heavy. She has him about to fire his gun, if you know what I mean, when he starts shouting the safe word, which just so happens to be ‘calamari’. She hops off, which is a good thing, because a Hellbug of some kind bursts out of his chest, killing him instantly.

When Doc Yewll gets to the scene and starts doing her thing, she figures out that it was a Hellbug, no doubt about it. Irisa sees the tattoo on the guy and has another vision. She is disturbed by these visions and doesn’t know what to make of them. The doctor lets them know that this guy, Bowen, and Tagert both had attack pheromones on them. The Hellbugs use them to guide the hive, but now someone is using them as a murder weapon.

At the Tarr house, Christie has made a Castithan dinner of river otter for her soon to be husband and in-laws. Stahma comments that it’s too bad Christie’s father Rafe couldn’t make it. Christie says that he is busy at the mines. Datak mutters in Castithan, “I’d be busy too, if I had to choke on this otter.” Christie has been learning the Castithan language and understands enough to get up from the table and run off. Alak chases after her.

While he is comforting her on the back patio, we hear a rumbling in the ground and a Hellbug pops up. It seems like a no brainer, but they used the exact same sound effects that the Hellbugs have in the game, which was pretty cool. Datak shows up with his energy sword and dispatches the Hellbugs while the rest of them run out the front door to safety.

They all gather at Rafe’s house and when Doc Yewll get there, she quickly discovers that Christie was covered in the attack pheromones. The only connection they can come up with between Tagert and Bowen is that they had sold some property to Rafe. Nolan wants to see the paperwork of the transaction. This is a very tedious job since everything is done on paper and stored away, so it takes all night for them to find what they are looking for.

While going through all the old paperwork, Irisa sees a picture that sets her off again into another vision. They are becoming more intense. She thinks she knows who is behind the attacks and goes to confront Sukar. She wants to know where Rynn is, because that’s who she has seen in her visions. He doesn’t know, but convinces her to do an Irathian ceremony with him to help her connect to her visions and try to see them clearly.

She succeeds and sees that Tagert and Bowen wanted to buy the property that Rynn lived on with her parents. Tagert and Bowen showed up one day and demanded that Rynn’s father sell immediately. When he denied them, they killed the mother and father, but Rynn was able to escape. Through the ceremony, Irisa is able to see where Rynn is in the present. So Nolan, Irisa, Sukar and Tommy all go to the mine shaft that Irisa saw Rynn in.

They take the elevator down to the bottom floor where they discover the Hellbug matron. The control board on the elevator shorted out on the way down, so Tommy starts fixing it. Rynn shows up and shoots Sukar in the leg. She blames him for leading them to her. He explains that it was Irisa and that the gods have given her the sight. She has a pheromone grenade that she pulls the pin out of. Irisa tries to convince Rynn that her vengeance is complete because she killed the men that killed her parents. Rynn wants to take out the rest of the humans. Rynn throws the pheromone grenade, Irisa throws a knife into Rynn’s shoulder, Nolan grabs the grenade and throws it onto the Hellbug matron to get the babies to attack mama. It works and they get everyone into the elevator as Tommy is just finishing the repairs. Nolan throws the explosives they brought along near the matron. As the elevator is rising, Nolan shoots the explosives and the town has once again been saved.

Mayor Amanda has a small ceremony in her office where she explains that the land will be given back to the descendants of the original Irathian owners and in exchange they will lease it to the McCawley Mines. She feels this is a good first step in Defiance righting an old wrong. The people in attendance applaud and Rafe and Sukar shake hands. Christie is proud of her dad and Sukar tips his hat to Irisa.

We get a few clips to help sum up where all of the relationships affected in this episode are at: Sukar goes to check on Rynn. She is still bitter that he helped the humans stop her. He still cares for her even though she’s going to be imprisoned.

Over at the Need Want, Nolan sees Irisa sitting alone at the bar. He starts to walk over, but Sukar sits down beside her and they start talking. He doesn’t want to interrupt.

Rafe is walking and talking with Christie when they arrive at the Tarr house. She runs up to give Alak a hug. She gives a little wave to Rafe as she goes inside. He waves back, but is very sad to see his little girl growing up.

Irisa is having a nightmare, or is just upset while laying in bed. Nolan sits on the edge while holding her had.

I would say this was another really good episode. We got the see and hear the Hellbugs for the first time. Toss in a little bit of mystery and political positioning to spice things up. We had some sex that ended with a chest bursting open. That was a little weird. A couple of little action scenes and some humor to lighten the mood from none other than Datak. Definitely didn’t see that one coming. We didn’t get any cliff hangers for the end of this one but the preview for next week did show that we get to see a bioman again, so that should be interesting.

Yesterday Trion announced the details for the contest the team is holding that will allow one player’s character to appear in the Defiance television show. The contest is called “Most Wanted” and requires players to own the game obviously, register for the contest, and take part in a couple of in-game pursuits. The contest will run from April 29th to May 12th.

Now, as to the actual competitive part of the contest. Players will have the time between the start and end of the contest to gather ark salvage. Not just any ark salvage, however. According to the official rules:

“Eligible Entries will be judged based on the amount of ark salvage earned, excluding any ark salvage earned in the Salvage Matrix, divided by the amount of time played during the Contest (the “ark salvage Per Hour”). The Entrant who earns the highest ark salvage Per Hour shall be the Winner.”

Two things to keep in mind here if you’re taking the contest seriously: Spend your time in-game wisely, and remember that salvage obtained in the Salvage Matrix does not count.

During last night’s post-episode Across the Badlands live stream, Sledgehammer and OverloadUT talked a little bit about the contest and mentioned the fact that despite there being only one true winner for the Most Wanted contest, the Trion team will be handing out exclusive caps to players who participate in the contest. They even previewed the cap, which can be seen here.

For more information, check out Trion’s Most Wanted announcement and list of official rules.

Since the 2-part pilot (episodes 1 & 2) had to introduce new characters, new settings, new alien races, and new terminology, we had to pay attention to a lot of detail. Now that we kind of know who and what we are dealing with in the show, things can be a little more streamlined for this recap.

We are reminded that during the big battle during the last episode, one of the Castithans (albino-looking alien race) was shown running away like a coward during the gunfight. It was the same one that approached Datak in the street to pay his debt that was a little bit late, so Datak already doesn’t like this guy. His name is Elah Bandik and his day was about to get a lot worse.

Elah was caught by Datak and other and put into a torture type device in the street. His wrists and legs are bound to ropes the hold him upright. As some Castithans slowly chant, other drop rocks into a basket. The heavier the basket gets, the more it pulls on the ropes. This is their ‘Cleansing Ceremony’ for a coward.

Nolan, the new Chief Lawkeeper in town, decides he will put a stop to this. Datak tries to explain to him that this is their ritual and that they have every right to do it. Amanda, the mayor, shows up and sides with Datak because she feels they should respect Castithan tradition.

Amanda and Nolan leave and she explains how there was a time when there were a lot of Irathians in town, but they wouldn’t vaccinate their children because of their tradition. The former mayor decided to make it mandatory and sent armed people to the Irathian houses to administer the vaccinations. There was an uprising and many Irathians were killed, while the rest fled the town. It was then that the town decided they should allow all the races to follow their own traditions.

We cut to a guard outside of a house where Ben, still in a coma, is laying in what seems to be a makeshift hospital. The guard is shocked by a weapon from behind and knocked out. It’s the bearded guy with the beady sunglasses from the end of the last episode, Mr. Birch. He goes in and injects Ben with something that wakes him up. Mr. Birch says that Ben needs to move on to plan ‘B’ or else his family will be “punished”.

Kristie and Quentin are in the kitchen when Rafe comes in. There is a lot of tension between Rafe and his daughter, especially after he says he wants her to call off the wedding. She takes off and Quentin is trying to calm down his dad, but does bring up a good point: Why was Luke meeting alone in the woods with Ben, the guy that brought the Volge down on us? Rafe starts snooping around Luke’s room to see if he can find an answer to Quentin’s question, but get’s a call saying there’s been an explosion in the mine.

Once everyone gets there, Nolan, Irisa , Amanda and Rafe, they find out that  Ben caused an explosion to block off a tunnel that leads to Old St. Louis. What’s Old St. Louis you ask? Alien terraformers went crazy and ended up destroying most cities. But at St. Louis the earth folded over the top of the city, but hardened before crushing it. Parts of the old city are still intact down inside what are now the mines.

They need capture Ben so they can find out why he’s doing all these bad things and who else is behind it all. The only way to catch up to him is if they go down into the mines through the Rat’s Nest which has razor sharp rocks and steep drop offs. Rafe and a few of his men are going to go through it. Nolan says he’s going too. Yeah, it’s like a co-op mission. (Spoiler alert, no one gets cut or falls while going through the Rat’s Nest. Must not be quite as scary as they made it sound.)

Once again we get CASTITHAN BATH TIME! Stahma is questioning if Datak should be doing the Cleansing Ritual. She thinks they should do away with the caste system and old rituals and try to gain human’s approval. He want’s to keep the caste system, because he’s at the top. Alak comes in saying that Christie wants to call off the wedding. Stahma  tells him, in her gentle but scheming voice, that she will take care of everything.

The former mayor is cleaning out a few of her things from the mayor’s office. Amanda wonders if it’s right to leave the Elah Bandik strung up the way he’s been for over 3 hours. The ex-mayor says that taking away their tradition would only cause a bigger mess. She then tell Amanda goodbye and that she’s going to miss her. Not sure if that’s because she’s leaving town or because she plans to kill everyone.

Irisa is watching Elah in pain as Castithans continue to add rocks to his basket. Once she sees a child doing it, she’s finally had enough, jumps up and cuts Elah down. The crowd turns on her and starts throwing rocks. Tommy fires a shotgun in the air to calm everyone down. To try to protect Elah, he says that Elah is under arrest, for … um … loitering. Tommy, Irisa and Elah head back to the Lawkeepers office.

Rafe, Nolan and the rest of the co-op party see an old nuclear power plant that was built after the war started. They figure out that if Ben detonates the explosives in one of the reactors that the radiation would get out through the Rat’s Nest and kill everybody in town.

Christie is a waitress in the dining car that we first saw Mr. Birch and the ex-mayor talking in. Stahma just happens to be dining there and starts up a conversation about Christie having second thoughts. She tells a story about how she was supposed to marry a guy her parents approved of, but she fell for Datak. Datak and her betrothed were set to duel, but the guy her parents had picked for her was accidentally sucked out of an airlock on the way to the duel. It was then that she knew that Datak would do anything to protect the two of them being together.

Now we get to a little bit of action: gunfight at the old power plant. It doesn’t last too long as Ben gets shot and falls to the ground, but it looks like he is close enough to set off the bomb. Luckily, Nolan gets to him in time to stop him. After Nolan disarms the bomb so everything is safe, Rafe pulls his gun on Ben. Nolan tells Rafe that he can do right by his dead child or right by the two living ones, but not both. Rafe starts to lower is gun when Ben jumps up, pulls the gun into his stomach and it goes off. He says to tell Amanda he’s sorry, and dies.

Back at the Lawkeeper’s Place, Datak a bioman and other Cartithans arrive to take Elah from Tommy and Irisa. Amanda, Nolan & Rafe also show up for the confrontation. Amanda says she decided to pardon Elah from his cowardly acts, therefor he can’t go back to the Cleansing Ritual. Datak isn’t happy about it, but decides to leave. He tells Rafe that he’ll see him at the wedding. Rafe is not amused.

Later, we see Rafe going through Luke’s room to see if he can figure out what Luke was up to. He ends up finding a secret compartment in a drawer that has money, some sort of map and a gold medallion shaped thing. Is this possibly the Cuzuri that the ex-mayor referenced at the end of the last episode?

Elah is seen eating with his family. He then gets up and starts walking away with Datak. He thanks Datak for the time he was able to spend with his family. Datak says that it is an honorable thing that he is doing and then pulls out a blue glowing blade.

Nolan hears screams outside of the Lawkeeper’s Place and runs outside to see what’s up. there on the doorstep is Elah’s dead body. Nolan doesn’t seem very surprised. *Cue theme music and pan out.*

So there you have it. We didn’t see Doc Yewll or Kenya this episode, which was sad. We did get to learn why there aren’t very many Irathians in town and why the Spirit Riders hated seeing Irisa and Nolan together. Also, I can’t decide who is more evil between Datak and Stahma, but they make for a very powerful couple. Plus with Stahma having the bath scenes, some fans are now referring to her as ‘Hot Mama Stahma.’

Two big questions moving forward: Since the ex-mayor’s Plan ‘B’ was thwarted,  what’s she going to try next? Why exactly is she attempting to “purge” the town?

If you can’t get enough of Defiance between the game and the TV show (and who could blame you) now you can watch a few live streamed events hosted by Trion every week here. There’s also a live chat so you can comment and ask questions.

On Monday at 7:05pm PDT you can watch ‘Across The Badlands’. If you’ve watched ‘The Talking Dead’ after an episode of ‘The Walking Dead’, it’s kind of like that. Well minus any big name celebrities, at least not yet. They discuss any connections between the game and the show that are going on. Like how in the game right now you might occasionally see fireworks in the sky and you’re able to light lanterns all in honor of the 15th anniversary of Armistice Day. They also have interviews with behind the scenes people. They’ve only had one episode so far, so who knows what other news or surprises they might reveal each week. They did give out 5 free games to random people who were active in the chat, so you won’t want to miss this show.

On Wednesday at 10:30 am PDT Trion members sit down to play one of their games with their fans. Right now it’s Defiance since it’s their most recent game, but may change over time.

Friday 3:00 pm PDT is more live streaming of Trion members playing Defiance. You may be able to pick up tips on how to beat certain things or see that you’re not the only one to drive your vehicle into the ocean.

So there you have it, Defiance finding even more ways to monopolize your free time. So what do you think they will add next, Defiance The Comic Book Series, Defiance The Mobile App or Defiance The Breakfast Cereal?

We hope you all are enjoying watching the show (recap article to follow soon). In the meantime, there will be a live stream immediately after the pilot episode. The webcast is supposed to explain some key details about how the game and show are going to connect. To join the live fun, click here.