RAIDERS OF THE BROKEN PLANET
Asymmetric online cover shooter is ready to break your brain
We’re having a good sniping day. Count ’em – that’s one, two, three heads in quick succession. Hugging the side of a roof like a kind of phantom polyp, we realise this is the first time all day we’ve felt powerful. Finally, we’ve wrestled the game’s punishing difficulty into submission. We relax. Suddenly, a shot sends us plummeting.
There are systems galore in Raiders Of The Broken Planet – systems for shooting, for brawling, for character upgrades, for stealth, ammo, and health. It all adds up to one golden rule, of course: concentrate. Drop your guard for even a second, and you’re liable to end up dead and probably friendless. Ouch.
Although you can certainly tackle its campaign missions solo with an AI squad backing you up, Raiders is a multiplayer shooter at its core. A band of ne’er-do-wells cobbled together by moody sniper Harec, Raiders’ roster fight the humans invading their “broken planet” – over-mined and split in the name of a valuable substance called Aleph. You and three friends take on objectives: vanquish a lasersighted tentacle alien, or escort an NPC through an al fresco corridor of bullets and death. Thing is, Raiders’ difficulty curve is more of a difficulty pole (covered in grease. Oh, and poisonous spikes).
The first snag we run into is ammo. Specifically, not having a lot of it. We’ve chosen to play as Alicia,
“THE DIFFICULTY CURVE IS MORE OF A DIFFICULTY GREASY POLE.”
“WHEN YOUR STRESS METER IS FULL, YOUR ANXIOUS NEON SKELETON IS VISIBLE THROUGH WALLS.”
a pistol-toting, blue haired Aussie with a foul mouth and a useful wall-jump (activated by pressing u). There are more goons than ammo for, which forces us to engage with the first of Raiders’ many systems: close-quarters melee brawling. It works like rockpaper-scissors, with ‘dodge’ ( o) countering ‘strike’ ( r). This blow resists an enemy ‘grapple’ ( w) while the grab neutralises a dodge. It’s a mandatory mental test, the need for victory and ammo adding tension to each encounter. Fortunately, mobile Alicia’s a great first pick – bouncing off the walls, floating in the air to line up the last of our shots, and swiftly nipping through crowds to ambush grunts.
STRESS KILLS
When we try out Russian heavy Konstantin, the fluid cover system goes from ‘essential’ to ‘we’re 98% certain we’ll die instantly if we move from behind this crate’. He’s slow – carrying a massive machine gun will do that to a fella – but taking cover is easy, a gentle push of the thumbstick enough for our character to flatten himself against walls automatically. Once in cover, moving from place to place and around corners is so simple and natural that we’re barely cognisant of it.
But we are very aware of the glowing bundle of nervous system we’ve morphed into after taking damage. So are our enemies. Each character has a ‘Stress’ level: doing anything at all causes your ‘Stress’ meter to rocket up. When the meter’s full, your anxious neon skeleton is visible through walls. We must keep powerful-but-plodding Konstantin cool as a cucumber through very scarce, considered shooting. Although his rightbumper ability (a repulsion field that suspends nearby enemies in the air) is a useful trick, his escape options are mainly limited, and we get shot to ribbons by fast-moving turrets.
On our team’s next – maybe fourth or fifth – attempt at the mission, we choose Raiders poster guy and sniper, Harec himself. Instantly, we feel freer. His incredible ability lets us teleport high up onto the sides of walls, scope in while in this shadowy form, and go to town on noggins galore. Until… Mikah.
CLONE WARS
She’s over here. She’s over there. Boasting an ‘army of two’-esque ability (she sends out a copy of herself that she can switch to and fro between with the press of a button), she’s infuriating to fight. She picks us out of our perch with ease, and constantly sneaks up on us. Yep, our four-person campaign has been crashed by an ‘antagonist’: another human player who’s out to thwart our mission for their own gain. Mikah’s soon made mincemeat of our team’s shared life pool: at least one of us must be left standing during the resulting ‘Survive!’ countdown for our mission to continue.
If it sounds like a lot to keep track of, that’s because it is. We’re given about an hour and a half of pure explanation before we even touch the game. Thankfully, it all comes together in play. Despite less general polish than a big-budget shooter, Raiders is an interesting intellectual juggle of a title. We’re getting Rainbow Six Siege-slash-Overwatch vibes from its tactical antics, so don’t let your guard drop with this one. It might just take you by surprise.