DREADNOUGHT

The hunt for dread October

As we meet the team behind Dreadnought, we notice a slogan on the dev’s wall that reads ‘Show you’re not afraid’. Yager has clearly taken it to heart, as its new game ditches the hot sand of breakout PS3 hit Spec Ops: The Line for the cold of space. It shows a desire to take a risk, to fear nothing.

A free-to-play strategic shooter, Dreadnought puts you in control of spaceships laden with enough exotic sci-fi weaponry to make Worf blush. EastGerman-born art director Mathias Wiese tells us it’s the game he’s always wanted to make since seeing a stolen five-second Star Wars clip as a teenager. It seems even The Wall couldn’t stop George Lucas.

Choosing the Destroyer-class ship (“The assault rifle of the game,” says game director Peter Holzapfel), we launch into our first battle… and explode, tumbling into a canyon. Respawn. We hammer an opponent with a cannon barrage and swipe left on the DualShock touchpad to push energy to our engines. The ship crumples under enemy fire; the canyon floor welcomes us back. Respawn. Let’s think about this. Swiping right on the touchpad adds energy to the shields – this feels better. We notice four module powerups twinkling in the bottom-right of the HUD; pressing q activates a nano-shell shield boost. A voice alerts us to incoming missiles, so we hit e and launch our laser defences, which scythe through our attacker’s barrage. Now we’re in control, moving closer we launch a missile swarm while simultaneously holding i to pound our enemy with cannon shots. Feeling confident we swipe up to increase power to the weapons and launch a plasma broadside. Our nemesis lets out a satisfying woompf, along with a flutter of explosions. Well done us. Little did we know a teammate playing as a Tactical Cruiser was in our shadow healing our ship all along. Well done them.

Teamwork is critical to success in Dreadnought. With the right blend of ships, matches evolve into chess-like games of cat-and-mouse. Other classes include the sniper-like Artillery, a massive gun on an engine; Corvettes are fast, nimble bombers that can weave between the giants of the game; and the titular Dreadnoughts are slow, heavily armoured brawlers.

New weapon modules and ‘Officer Briefings’ (passive stats) can be unlocked and researched with XP, as well as soft and hard currency. A three-screen deep maze-like Tech Tree shows how these add-ons can develop a ship, ultimately guiding you to the hero ship in each class; these best-inshow beasts are your bragging rights. As we saw in our first fiery foray, the wealth of modifiers and options on offer can feel daunting, but over time an emergent nature takes hold that encourages experimentation.

CRY HAVOC

Aside from the standard eightplayer deathmatch there’s Havoc, an exclusive-to-PS4 horde mode that distills Dreadnought’s complexity into an arcade shootout. Three players line up against wave upon wave of enemies, with the occasional boss battle upping the ante. Havoc puts Dreadnought’s calculated conflicts under a microscope, an insta-hit of co-operation and strategy.

Havoc shows what Dreadnought needs to succeed – an evolving menu of game modes. As a free-to-play shooter, Yager will be rolling out new features over time, potentially including team campaigns. “The key element for us is to provide players with more means to interact and engage, to let them do more within the game,” says Yager co-founder Timo Ullmann as we take a break.

Dreadnought feels ambitious but it’s early days, and we do have reservations about the free-to-play format; we ask Timoh if Dreadnought will be pay-towin. “No, it’s a super-essential thing to not do that,” he says. Thankfully, you won’t be buying your way to better ships, showing Yager has drawn a new line in the sand.