Walking into Bethesda’s booth at E3 this year I have to admit that I wasn’t really expecting much. Last year we had first looks at Wolfenstein: The New Order, Elder Scrolls Online and The Evil Within. This year they were focusing on The Evil Within again as it gears up for an October release and its new free-to-play title Battlecry. Despite my initial cynicism I’m happy to say I walked out of the Bethesda booth with a much more positive outlook than I had going in. I should point out right from the start that I’m a notorious hater of the free-to-play model. I understand the logistics behind it but for one reason or another it’s never appealed to me. Surprisingly, Battlecry might be the game to turn it around for me. Not because it’s necessarily doing anything different but quite simply because it’s fun to play.
For those of you not in the know Battlecry is a 32 player, third person, team combat game set in a universe that has rewritten the timeline of the 20th century. They live in a world without gunpowder where battles for power occur in very specific areas known as WarZones. Warriors choose to face off here to stand up for what they believe in rather than conduct all-out war around the world. Â Upon release there will be three factions available, two of which were revealed to us at the show.
First up are the Royal Marines whose design is meant to reflect the majesty and discipline of the British Empire and the second is the Cossack Empire who project courage and ferocity. The character design clearly reflects the graphic novel art style inspiration that the dev team is going for as well as the work of Viktor Antonov of Half-Life 2 and Dishonored fame.
Each faction has five classes available to play that suit many different play styles and each class has three unique abilities to use in game which are powerful but will require a cool down period. The Enforcer, a powerful tank character who carries a massive sword that can convert to a shield, the Duelist who is agile and quick with stealth abilities (cloak for example), the Tech Archer who can fire off charged up arrow shots that suit mid to long range, the Gadgeteer who sports a mean looking magnetic gauss gun, and finally the Brawler who wields a mechanical arm and is best used for down and dirty up close melee combat. It’s easy to tell just from the character descriptions alone that the battlefield, excuse me… WARZONE, is much more varied than on your standard FPS run and gun.
Now I can get to the most important part of any preview… hands on impressions! The pace was fast and frenetic and it’s very easy to control and maneuver through the WarZone. We were playing a pre-Alpha Death Match on the Fracture map. Using magnetic hook style grapple orbs (think Bioshock Infinite Sky Hooks) and launch pads you can traverse the environment extremely fast which can be good for closing distances when you’re a melee character facing off against a Tech Archer. The more ruthless you are in battle the faster your adrenalin metre will climb and when used, either in short power bursts or full metre drain attacks, your character would unleash devastating attacks. Of course the better you do in game the more iron you earn to customize your character at the end of the match. Further customization comes with the other currency, gold, which will be purchasable but not required. The devs truly are keeping the game as a free to play if you so choose.
Wrapping it all up players have time to movie around the map during the endgame to salute the best players of the match. The devs feel that this will help further the growth of the community within the game allowing gamers to show their respect for the ultimate WarZone champions right in game.
At a very early glance Battlecry looks like it has a lot of potential to be a great experience for gamers. It’s obviously lacking a bit of polish, especially graphically, but there is a lot of time between now and when the beta launches sometime in 2015. Despite the rough edges this early access look promises good things to come for Battlecry. Keep it locked here on COG for more information as we get closer to the beta release.
