A budding, episodic post-apocalyptic third-person shooter

Aug 21, 2014 14:50 GMT  ·  By

Afterfall Reconquest Episode 1 is the first part of a third-person shooter/adventure game, set in a war-torn world, devastated by the use of an apocalyptic weapon.

When the conflict started and the new weapon was used, a lucky few found shelter in sanctuaries beneath the mountains. After a few years, their resources started dwindling, and it became obvious that they needed to go out and find a new place to call home.

The former inhabitants of the sanctuary cities began their slow descent into the lowlands, looking for fertile soil and clean water, in order to rebuild civilization, embarking on the grueling task of reconquering what once belonged to civilization.

But the road back to humanity's former glory lies fraught with danger, in the form of mutants and wildlife, nightmarish creatures as well as mysterious survivors that will stand in the way of rebuilding the lost cities.

You step into the shoes of one of the few surviving members of the Corvin family, setting on a quest to discover what caused the annihilation of your family, and to exact your vengeance on the guilty ones.

The game is in Early Access on Steam, and so far it doesn't have too much content, aside from basic movement and abilities.

You start off with no idea of who you are or what you're fighting for, you just go around a very linear path with monsters spawning at triggered positions around you, doing your best to use your energy-based shotgun and conserve pistol ammo.

The gunplay is very simple but lacks depth so far, being able to zoom in a little, as if using weapon sights, but not translating into a greatly improved accuracy, and monsters are especially difficult to hit when they're nearby.

It's fun, but very limited so far, with your only weapons being the shotgun blast, the pistol, and a second ability that creates a shield in front of you, depleting energy as it takes damage.

Since energy regenerates pretty fast, you've pretty much got unlimited ammo, which is great, considering the number of enemies spawning in each location.

So far, gunning stuff down is pretty fun, and you can also do all sorts of tricks such as luring enemies into narrow quarters, where the ricochet from your shotgun blast will hit them multiple times, but there are also frustrating bits, such as the lack of AI and enemies simply appearing at scripted points.

You don't have a lot of health, pretty much anything can kill you in about three hits, but thankfully, once you put everyone to sleep, you can heal by playing vampire with their corpses, which again thankfully, takes a moderate amount of time, not enough to become tedious but not as little as to abuse the mechanic.

Afterfall Reconquest is set in the same world as developer Intoxicate Studios' previous game, Afterfall Insanity, but it features better systems all across the board, showing the potential to greatly surpass its horror predecessor.

Its visuals look pretty good so far, but the game still needs a lot of work until it can present the world and wealth of interaction that the setting deserves. The base building blocks are in place, and movement still needs a bit of refining, especially when it comes to climbing over knee-high obstacles that prevent your progress, but the game has a pretty strong Metro-like vibe.

It obviously needs a bit of polish (like waypoints and a map), and so far it lacks a lot of content, but it shows all the signs of something at least decent taking shape in the alpha build.

There's not much to do so far in the first episode, but once Intoxicate Studios makes the game world a little richer in interactions, Afterfall Reconquest might prove to offer fans of grim horror adventures another engrossing adventure to enjoy.

Afterfall Reconquest Episode 1 screenshots (21 Images)

Afterfall Reconquest Episode 1
Afterfall Reconquest Episode 1Afterfall Reconquest Episode 1
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