DICE and EA spend millions ensuring Battlefield is associated with the right semantic keywords. Rush, bang, dakka, grey, orange – all reinforced by the posters and trailers the publishers put together for the release of a new iteration.
But Insurgency manages the same without a single dollar wasted. Buried within its name alone are the words ‘surge’, ‘urgency’, and (next) ‘gen’. And after nine months of Steam Early Access, it looks equally worthy of our time.
This standalone follow-up to the much-played, crosshair-less Half-Life 2 mod fell someway short of a $180,000 Kickstarter target in late 2012 – but its dev team have since spent their time wisely, taking the long route to release via Steam Early Access. It’s now set for official, properly designated Finished Game launch tomorrow on PC and Mac.
Insurgency offers six-player co-op, but at its heart is a 32-player strong competitive multiplayer mode. There you’ll find squad-based tactics, gun physics to rival Arma, and that elusive ‘feel’ that shooter fans talk about like a favourite song they can’t quite remember the name of.
“We are a small indie development team attempting to create the most intensely gritty combat experience in a first person shooter you will ever play,”say developers New World. “The game’s strategic elements have enabled a distinctive multiplayer and cooperative experience where teamwork is the defining factor between victory and defeat.”
The whole thing runs on Source, which tends to grab the interest of a certain sort of Valve disciple. Is that you, do you think?
Thanks, Shacknews.