It is honest to say that the online game trade is present process a interval of alarming disarray. Studios are closing, improvement budgets are exploding and worthwhile genres have gotten saturated by mega-budget pick-me candidates that really feel totally interchangeable.
Into this troubling market comes Harmony, Sony’s new five-v-five “hero” shooter, the subgenre of the multiplayer on-line blaster the place gamers management characters with elaborate particular powers fairly than identikit spec-ops troopers or house marines. Set in a warring galaxy managed by an autocratic regime generally known as The Guild, the sport offers us management of assorted Freegunners – mercenaries who plough the house lanes in search of jobs whereas additionally slinging one-liners at one another within the recreation’s extremely polished cutscenes. Within the recreation, nonetheless, what they do is struggle.
All the usual characters of the hero shooter are current – vanilla soldier, floaty witch, teleporting weirdo, sassy tank – but none have the instant attraction of Overwatch denizens reminiscent of D.Va or Mei. They do, nonetheless, convey numerous selection to the fight zone. Lark is a weird mushroom alien who crops spores that sluggish enemies whereas therapeutic allies; Kyps is a stealthy murderer who can reveal enemy positions to her staff; cumbersome robotic 1-Off throws exploding trash cans. I just like the innate flexibility of those abilities and the best way they mix between characters. The submachine-gun-toting Duchess can throw down a defensive barrier, which is helpful for canopy, but additionally blocks off goal factors from the opposing staff, and may also be used to funnel enemy troopers into ambushes. Daveers can bomb an space with a napalm-like substance named Burnite, which might then be ignited by incendiary fireplace from different gamers doubling its impact.
The 12 launch maps are principally hypercolourful variations on the sci-fi industrial areas we used to see in Quake. Backbone Works and Sorting Hub are labyrinthine complexes, all interconnected metal walkways, delivery containers and box-like warehouse choke factors. Water Hazard is an deserted oil rig with the stays of an enormous sea monster mendacity throughout the highest like some type of nightmarish Lovecraftian sushi dish. My favorite is Prepare Hassle, a post-apocalyptic railway graveyard the place Mad Max meets Tatooine.
When it comes all the way down to what counts, the moment-to-moment pleasure and stress of team-based fight, Harmony actually flies at occasions. Motion has that barely floaty really feel of Future, which works brilliantly in these extraordinarily vertical maps, encouraging gamers to utilize double jumps in order that fights are really three dimensional. The gun really feel is superb: from shotguns to laser pistols, each weapon is strong and readable, the audio and visible suggestions completely conveying its distinctive capabilities. There are elegant moments, when your complete staff is collectively, and all their skills are combining and exploding in unpredictable methods, making a euphoric shooter expertise equal to your finest occasions with Overwatch.
However proper now, the massive query is whether or not it has sufficient to tear gamers away from Activision’s recreation, or Valorant, or Apex Legends, or any of the others. It’s fantastically made, however massive elements of it are achingly acquainted, not simply by way of character sorts or the anime-tinged visible aesthetic, however within the construction. The sport modes are all the usual sorts – there’s a staff dying match, there may be one the place you must dominate three goal zones, one other the place there is just one zone however it’s all the time transferring, one other the place you must choose up tokens from downed enemies to register the kill. That is the stuff we now have been taking part in since Doom. In the meantime, the dialogue and humour is similar post-Whedon ironic detachment shtick that Marvel and Netflix YA dramas have been force-feeding us for a decade. Oh for the darkish, wanton satire and anarchic team-mate-slaughtering mayhem of Helldivers 2.
Harmony’s most attention-grabbing wrinkle is within the recreation’s “meta”, the strategic half exterior the principle motion. The sport has launched some deck-building parts, in that you must assemble your individual crew of characters, every with slight variants on the everyday skills. All these characters have distinctive buffs generally known as Crew Bonuses that add refined boosts to your staff’s well being, armour or firepower everytime you play them in a match; these stack all through the struggle – so if you’re taking part in with an organised staff, you may work collectively to construct a formidable statistical benefit, like hand in Hearthstone. It’s an attention-grabbing concept, however within the chaos of public servers, the place solely a fraction of individuals play as a part of an organised staff, it’s laborious to know if it’s going to have any impact.
Maybe the bravest component of Harmony is that it’s a premium-priced product, fairly than a “dwell service” free-to-play launch – so as an alternative of the ever present season move mannequin, any subsequent content material might be free. It’s also unapologetically and loudly numerous, which is able to upset the kinds of gamers who fashionable on-line video games ought to be upsetting as a result of, frankly, this minority of misanthropic gatekeeping blowhards is ruining the enjoyable for everybody else.
In the end, Harmony wants time, house and a wholesome group whether it is to soar above its older, wiser opponents. Proper now, with gamers getting the texture of the place, it’s skittish and unfocused – but additionally, often, superb enjoyable. With its angle, its element, its elaborate backstory (explorable by means of a visible encyclopedia certainly impressed by The Hitchhiker’s Information to the Galaxy) it looks like one thing the event staff really cherishes. Assuming the life help of writer funding isn’t ripped out too quickly, there’s an opportunity it’s going to discover an viewers that feels the identical.