Team17 were nice enough to give us access, (pre early access I hasten to add), to their forthcoming pvpve tactical looter shooter "Marauders".
Marauders is an upcoming hardcore multiplayer looter shooter set in an alternative 1990s where The Great War never ended, Earth has been industrialised to breaking point, and many have fled to the stars. Band together with a crew of up to three other players to navigate a hostile battleground, hunt for loot, craft new weapons and gear, and salvage what’s needed to survive.
Marauders is being developed by an indie UK studio called Small Impact and it's being published by Team17. The game releases into early access my Monday 3rd October.
Honestly I wish I could tell you more but the state the game is in at the moment I haven't actually been able to play it.
The game boots up fine and you are presented with an overview of how to play and customize your character.
It looks a bit 'bare bones' and isn't what you'd call a pretty game. Equal parts keeping with the derelict space hulk type theme and just bad character models. Presentation is functional rather than anything attractive or appealing.
Eager to try it out I geared up my awkwardly designed avatar and hit "launch expedition" then I waited...
Granted this is in a press preview period so there's not going to be too many people online playing, so I waited longer....
.... Finally the game loaded in and I was aboard a ship. Graphically very basic looking, nothing to get excited about. But hey, I don't mind bland aesthetics if I have great frame rates and exciting team gameplay. I looked around, eager to see my equally poorly constructed team mates.... But I was alone..
I tried to move, to go in search of my team, maybe they had already set off? But I was frozen to the spot, all I could do was fire my gun, or jump, which didn't actually make me jump, it just fired my gun again.
I hoped that the gunshots would bring my team running to my aid, but it was soon painfully clear that I was alone. There were no other players in my multiplayer fps experience. My gunshots rang out in vain, in space (like an empty server) no one can hear you scream... Or shoot... Or shoot again for some reason when you hit the space bar to jump...
There were not even any PvE creatures to deliver me the merciful release of death. Nothing for it but Alt+F4.
I did try Marauders several more times to try and find a 'busy' spot and get teamed up with other players, but no joy. Buggy, glitchy and visually unappealing, it looks like a game being pushed out the door before it's ready. Like the window cleaner from a housewife's bedroom window in a "Carry On" movie.
Not sure how accurate the ping results are but my displays fluctuated wildly between around 60ms and 800ms. Again I'm not sure if this is server based, or peer to peer; but if it's server I really hope it improves before early access launch next week.
I will revisit on October 3rd to see how the actual Early Access release shapes up, but after this preview my expectations are extremely low.
An FPS releasing the same week as Overwatch 2 has to be something special and at the moment Marauders is barely "something".
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