3. SOS’ Hero Platform is Potentially Groundbreaking
From the outside looking in, SOS can be mistaken for just another multiplayer survival game with battle royale elements. Once you take a closer look, you’ll realize there’s much more to the experience. At the core of SOS resides what I consider to be a groundbreaking platform called ‘Hero’. Hero is a system embedded within the game that’s designed to enable players to interact with their audiences in entirely new ways. For example, while playing the game, your UI is equipped with two forms of notifications. One is a viewer counter and the other is a series of emoji-like expressions. At any given moment, the viewer counter notifies you of how many spectators are observing you at once. While playing, you’ll know exactly how they feel about your performance as the emoji icon will fill with expressions like rage, laughter, applause, or shock. For example, I once mercilessly killed a teammate to steal his relic in an attempt to escape. My screen quickly filled with rage faces reacting to my heinous action. At the end of each match, your popularity ranking is determined. Over time, you can climb the popularity scale on the Hero leaderboards and be matched with other popular players in an effort to put on the most entertaining matches possible. Additionally, spectators can vote between a number of supply drops that can either benefit or hinder you during the most critical moments of a match. It’s truly a unique feature that beautifully works hand in hand with streaming services like Twitch and YouTube. It’ll be interesting to witness it evolve through iterations of SOS and other games that Outpost is bound to develop.
2. A Chance to Build an Audience
Hero is clearly designed to benefit established streamers and players who wish to build an audience online. Serving as the core element of the SOS experience, it’s what encourages players to be creative with their personalities, play styles, and interactions with others. If you reside toward the top of the Hero leaderboard, you’re intentionally matched with additional high-level players. Inevitably, you’ll be matched with popular streamers, potentially exposing you to a massive new audience. SOS could be the door that leads eager streamers to reach the masses, all while providing a fun experience and a great show for spectators.
1. Survival with A Twist
On La Cuna, sixteen players spawn, but only three can escape the island. That concept alone flips the entire battle royale genre on its head. Sure, SOS isn’t entirely a battle royale experience, but it certainly contains elements. Every player has one life, and it’s up to them to either survive alone or join forces with others. With a literal high five emote, players can team up and search for relics together. This feature is entirely unpredictable. In my experience, I was a part of teams ranging between three to eight people. Obviously, only three of us could escape the island, which led to some intriguing, temporary alliances that we all knew would eventually end in vain. One of my more memorable moments featured a teammate running from a pack of vicious monkey creatures as he tossed me his relic. He was massacred in the process, but his valiant sacrifice led to my near escape. I was later shot to death while being pulled to safety, but it was a moment I won’t soon forget. On top of it all, the stakes are real. Based on your performance, your popularity ranking is affected. It’s impossible to determine how matches will play out, which makes SOS quite an addicting experience.
I’ve hardly scratched the surface of some of my favorite moments from my hands-on experience with the game, but those are the top five reasons you should check out SOS: The Ultimate Escape. For an in-depth look at SOS, you can check out my extended thoughts here.