Four years ago, Electronic Arts’ chief design officer left to co-found his own studio created with the support of Nexon. On Monday, Patrick Soderlund’s studio showed off its first game: decisiveA squad-based, free-to-play multiplayer shooter inspired by the sci-fi bloodsport narrative squid game And running manWhere a lot can be destroyed on the game map.
decisive“A hero is a producer, not a shooter,” said Gustav Tilby, creative director of Embark Studios. As shown in a debut trailer, players will have access to a variety of weapons and their tactical uses, from katanas and other melee weapons to rocket launchers and even a foam gun, which can fortify crumbling walls Or you can build a bridge on high ground. ,
“We want to create a game that provides players with the tools to interact, transform, and use their worlds meaningfully,” Tillby said. “So, it’s a shooter; it’s a game where aiming and shooting are important. But it’s also a game where players can use the environment and adapt to changes in the environment.”
“We like decisive To be a game about intuition; Wherever you think something should work, it probably will,” Tilby said. So players of mass destruction can break out across the map. in a standard match decisive There will be four teams of three players each. It’s “not a battle royale, it’s not a military sim,” Tilby insisted.
Stockholm-based Embark Studio was founded in 2018 by Söderlund and Rob Runson, who is also Embark’s chief creative officer. Originally, Embark’s first game was to be ARC RaidersA free-to-play, third-person sci-fi shooter that was announced in December at The Game Awards 2021. In August, Embark announced ARC Raiders was delayed to 2023; But Some codenamed “Project Discovery” – who is decisive – “We’ve made progress faster than we first imagined,” Soderlund said, moving its development and launch plans ahead on schedule.
decisiveThe completely destructible environment “means there’s a lot of chaos to go around,” Tilby said. He called the maps “hyper-realistic virtual playgrounds” that are “based on iconic real-world locations.” The one shown on Monday was based at the Hotel Monaco in Monte-Carlo, for example (though Embark was not providing any details about where else the game was going).
There will be changing weather and time of day in the atmosphere to further differentiate each match. Players can destroy furniture and scenes, or entire buildings themselves, by blowing up a load-bearing wall and watching the rest of the structure come down. “You can interact with physical objects, you can pick and throw them, set things on fire,” Tilby said.
grid view
The main innovation behind all this destruction, Tilby said, is that it all goes decisive‘ Servers, unlike the hardware of their customers. This is what makes the collapse of an entire building possible, Tilby said. “Server-side movement and destruction is another thing we have been pursuing for a long time,” he said. “In a multiplayer space, it opens up a lot of possibilities. It’s like a holy grail.”
Player avatars will, of course, be endlessly customizable in both appearance and performance. “You can be agile, kind of” [like a] Ninja, climb rooftops and take down enemies with a katana, or you can be a heavy, a tank with a rocket launcher. It’s really up to you.” Yes, the game “will definitely be a form of Battle Pass,” Tilby said. At Monday’s briefing, we saw players wearing ballerina tutus and samurai armor, among many other outfits.
decisive Will stage a closed alpha starting Thursday, September 29th and running through Monday, October 3rd at 3 p.m. EDT. Embark is taking registrations for PC Alpha (via Steam) right now, but states that the player population will be limited and not everyone will be recruited. (When decisive When launched in full, it will also come to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X). Players can expect to play a game that has bugs and balance issues, and are told not to stream their game (though it’s okay to share written impressions). Alpha will run in Europe and North America.
decisive No launch date or window yet; Embark is planning massive alpha and beta tests later this coming weekend.
