Extraction shooters are already fairly tense affairs, where one wrong move can mean you’re dead. Other players and NPCs all signal your imminent demise. So when one extraction shooter decided to up the tension with aliens and a horror theme, my heart froze in terrible anticipation. Level Zero: Extraction is doing just that, dripping in sci-fi horror and inhuman enemies, and it just got its Steam Early Access launch date.
Even before its official release, there’s a buzz building around Level Zero: Extraction. The multiplayer FPS game has already run an open beta which attracted a staggering 300,000 players. As a result of this beta, several changes and new features have been implemented, incorporating community feedback into the fabric of the game. These include new locations, weapons, and AI improvements for the game’s AI controlled enemies.
One of the core aspects that separates Level Zero: Extraction from the crowd are its aliens. While other extraction shooters have human enemies that hunt you down, here some of your foes are distinctly nonhuman and behave accordingly. Light is their weakness, so make sure you’re packing something to illuminate the action to get an edge. Or you can play as an alien, hunting down humans to improve your DNA and level up and become even more powerful. This means in addition to the realistic tactical shooter inspirations like Gray Zone Warfare and Escape from Tarkov, there’s a bit of Left 4 Dead floating around too.
Adding horror into the extraction shooter formula is a bold move, but seems to be one that’ll pay off. Sci-fi has been explored before in the genre, such as in Marauders, but true horror has so far been mostly unexplored. Of course, scares happen in every shooter of this type, as mixing together AI enemies and other players is a recipe for jump scares and sudden bouts of intense action, but Level Zero: Extraction is upping the atmosphere considerably, making something entirely new.
Level Zero: Extraction will launch into Steam Early Access on Tuesday August 6. Head over to the game’s official page to check it out and add it to your wishlist.
You can also take a peek at our guide to the best multiplayer games you can play, as well as our best horror games recommendations to give you all the frights you need.
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