Home > Raiders of the Broken Planet is not Your Typical Shooter
One of the games I had the pleasure of demo-ing for an extended period of time on the E3 showfloor was Raiders of the Broken Planet. The game comes from the development team MercurySteam, whom you might recognize them as the team responsible for the upcoming Metroid Samus Return remake. The game is a 4 vs 1 asymmetric shooter that is coming to Xbox One, PS4, and PC later this year.
I was able to play the Xbox One version of the game, which will feature Xbox One X and native 4K support on day one. While the game was designed around the 4 vs 1 online multiplayer mechanic, the game also features an offline multiplayer and single player campaign mode. Due to the nature of the demo, I was playing the single player campaign. I was unfortunately not able to try out multiplayer at the time, but I'll have a chance to try it over the coming months during the beta period, which you can register for here.
I've never been a huge fan of the stereotypical gray shooter that are have become quite popular as of late. I can certainly appreciate why people enjoy the games and I won't suggest that they are wrong to do so, but I've never had a great time playing them. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that Raiders of the Broken Planet was very colorful and engaging.
The game lets you choose between an array of playable characters, almost Overwatch style, that each have unique abilities. Different abilities include double-jumps, jetpacks, speed, and not being detectable by enemies. In fact, a major component of the game is stealth and avoiding detection. Enemies can see you through barriers and vice versa, depending on your stealth level and character choice. This adds an interesting dynamic to the game, as you'll have a very hard time just camping out and waiting for enemies. They'll play very agressively and seek you out, and you'll need to follow suit if you want to complete a mission.
Another interesting component is the emphasis on melee combat. The only way to obtain ammo in the game is by defeating enemies in melee and taking their ammunition from them. This means that not only will you need to be very conservative with the ammo you use and which enemies you choose to kill, but you'll need to be aggressive and take some enemies on head on.
This works well, because enemies rarely need to actually be defeated to complete a mission. In fact, if you aren't selective and waste your time with too many baddies, you'll almost definitely fail the mission. Mission goals vary and I only got to see a few, but the ones I saw were pretty standard: get from point A to point B, save someone from the enemy, or capture some intel or package.
As far as single player goes, my biggest take away from this game was that it's very challenging. I managed to barely scrape through the few demo levels after multiple failed attempts, only to be told that they were the very beginning levels and I was playing on the easiest difficulty. I think part of my struggle was getting used to controls and mission objectives in a short period of time, among other distractions, but that doesn't take away from the difficulty of the game.
While I'm not particularly excellent at shooters in the first place, it is refreshing to see a game that will require a certain level of mastery to excel at. Repeatedly failing the missions motivated me to play them over until I figured them out and was honestly quite fun. This sheer difficulty might be a turn off for some players, the game is rather unforgiving, but if you're looking for a challenging single player campaign or a new twist on a multiplayer single player, I'm inclined to recommend Raiders of the Broken Planet.
We'll be trying out the beta soon, so we'll be able to give impressions on multiplayer a little later. As for single player, I had a great time with the game and talking to it's developer, who is very passionate about the game. The game will release in non-chronological parts that can each be purchased separately or together. There hasn't been a confirmed price for these little chapters, but the developer ensured me that buying every part of the game would be much cheaper than the price of a traditional AAA modern game. Stay tuned for further impressions and news on Raiders of the Broken Planet!
About the Author:
Rial Johnson
Rial Johnson co-founded Concealed Gaming after years of running sister sites Nintendo Castle and Pokéball Insider. He is an avid gamer with a special place in his heart for Nintendo, but often finds himself writing about games more than actually playing them. You'll likely see him around the various network sites and on social media, mostly managing the front-end content of the websites.
