I BIG IN THE USS *
Between Overwatch and Fortnite, online shooters have come a long way since the likes of Call Of Duty could secure our attention with little more than the addition of wall-running. But the latest free-to-play shooter to break onto Playstation 4 has the temerity to ignore recent trends and deliver what, maybe, secretly, we all want: a free to play Call of Duty-alike. While Western PC gamers lost interest in Warfare some time
ago the shooter found a home in Russia, where it’s been a huge success. It’s not a surprise, the game has pedigree, as it was originally created by Crytek, the Crysis developer. It’s coming to PlayStation 4 because Skyforge developer Allods Team loved the game so much and wanted to bring it to console. “We play it all the time in the studio and believed it would be perfectly suited to console,” says Alexander Shimov, project manager at Allods Team, Moscow Development Studio. “In fact, we much prefer the PS4 version now.”
While it does feel a little oldfashioned compared to current shooters, as a free-to-play FPS there are few that can rival its depth of content. It offers a full package of PvE and PvP modes, and even battle royale. At early access on 20 August Warface will feature 14 competitive maps and five modes, four co-op missions, and a Battle Royale mode spread over 30 unique maps. That’s a lot for nowt.
ROBOCAPER
Eschewing the standard deathmatch mode, we choose to team up with the Allods Team devs on a private server for a round of Special Operations. This four-player co-op mode draws its influences from Destiny and PC’s Left 4 Dead to deliver fraught survival gunplay against waves of bloodthirsty robots. Put thoughts of Detroit out of your mind, there’s no nuance here – these AI need putting down over the course of ten levels as we ascend a tower in the Black Shark mission, and make a break for the safety of a waiting helicopter.
You can instantly tell Crytek was involved in the game’s DNA. Shooting is fast and accurate, snapping down the sights feels instinctive, and the pace is closer to Titanfall 2 than the more recent Call Of Duty: WWII. It’s a feeling that never fades as we hit e and knee-slide past a gang of robots too slow to keep up.
While the mission we’re playing is a straightforward series of arenas, coming one after the other as we pepper our way to the rooftop escape route, each floor does present different challenges – android hordes give way to snipers on later levels.
Each co-op Special Operations mission will play differently too, says Shimov. “They are very unique, they have a special boss to battle; Ice Breaker, for example, has this large ship at the end that you fight inside and across. […] They have unique narrative content too.”
Whichever sortie you opt for, a medic is a must for reviving allies. The higher up Dark Shark’s tower we progress, the tougher the challenge becomes, particularly as Warface demonstrates its cinematic chops when a loose rocket strikes our waiting helicopter, sending it cartwheeling into the tower. The final ten minutes are a last-chance saloon shootout, us against a horde of AI, as a new helicopter slowly approaches. It may not be the most original setpiece, but it’s put together well.
ONE FOR ALL
The same can be said of Warface’s deathmatch. As Special Operations comes to a close (we lost in the dying seconds) we boot up a free-for-all
with the same devs over in Russia. There’s a little lag when connecting, but there will be dedicated servers for PS4 at launch on early access. The Free For All mode delivers just what we hoped for: tight player-versusplayer combat set inside a mazey map that could have been in any Call Of Duty from the last ten years.
As me-too shooters go Warface has some ideas of its own, too. First, that knee-slide which mostly looked cool and dramatic in Special Operations now enables us to slide under gaps in fences and down into drainage pipes to escape a preying rifle sight.
Just as we’re getting into the grind of the map, as the fun but rudimentary gunplay begins to wane, Shimov points out we can tweak our gun’s loadout on the fly. Finding a safe space, we bring up the custom weapon screen, our gun appears and all accessible add-ons float around it in positionals. We swap out our scoped sight for a reflex sight, our grenade launcher for a grip, and jump back into the fray. It takes seconds and offers a great opportunity to adjust your tactics on the go without needing to wait for an untimely death.
Warface’s competitive mode offers a fast, tactical bout of deathmatching, and it’s an area of play the dev wants to engender on PS4. “We want to improve and evolve this competitive side on PlayStation 4, especially as the console has the new tournament feature with ESL […] This will be implemented in the foreseeable future and we’ll be hosting competitions on PlayStation 4,” says Shimov.
(WAR)FACE VALUE
Between PvE and PvP Warface has your general shooter needs covered, and in battle royale mode it could have a winning formula. While leading battle royales such as Fortnite and H1Z1 opt for large-scale 100-player matches, Warface keeps things personal with 32-player survivathons.
Adding to the novelty, each weapon (there are 70 in this mode, including pistols and real-world machine guns) only has one clip of ammunition when found, ensuring you need to make every shot count. The small size and limited availability of ammo can mean matches last a matter of minutes.
“It reflects the very essence of Warface,” says Shimov. “It is a fast-paced and very dynamic experience […] Armed with melee from the very start, players quickly go through a looting phase, diving straight into battle.”
Where other online shooters drill down into one original idea, Warface is a free-to-play rarity, an FPS that aims to offer a wide package of modes and play styles with enough quality to make you come back for more. Shimov certainly thinks so: “There’s still room for good free-to-play titles, and there’s no military shooter that’s as good as Warface… I think it will find its place on PlayStation 4.”
"WARFARE KEEPS BATTLE ROYALE PERSONAL WITH 32-PLAYER SURVIVATHONS."