2K reveals free-to-play hero shooter Project Ethos, an extraction game with a minor 'roguelike' twist
2K Games has finally joined its competitors: It has a hero shooter. (Aside from Battleborn, that is.) The company flew a few dozen streamers (and me and a couple other press) to LA this week to unveil Project Ethos, an upcoming free-to-play competitive game that it's calling a «roguelike hero shooter.»
It's not really a roguelike: You just get to pick from randomized sets of buffs throughout a match. Otherwise, it's a third-person shooter that resembles Fortnite, but with hero characters who come with unique guns and abilities, and a low-stakes PvPvE extraction mode as its main attraction.
The last surprise new hero shooter I previewed was Concord, and although I thought it was alright, things didn't go great for that one (there are rumblings of a comeback attempt). But unlike Concord, which was announced just a couple months before it went on sale for $40 and immediately tanked, Project Ethos is still in «early» development, according to reps from developer 31st Union, and will be free-to-play. A public playtest is starting today, with access granted via Twitch drops from streamers at the event, and there was lots of talk about listening to player feedback during development.
There's a good amount here for a game in «early» development (which actually started five years ago with a small team), and I spent several hours playing it yesterday. My favorite of the six available characters was Prism, who can peer through a ring of light that marks enemies and buffs her sniper shots, as well as briefly cloak. I also liked Arbor, who alternates between healing and area-of-effect poison attacks.
«Evolutions» earned during a match (these are the «roguelike» randomized upgrade choices) can, for example, cause Arbor's poison attacks to also heal allies, or add a speed buff to his healing ability. The idea is that, when the stars align and you're offered and select the right set of upgrades, they'll synergize for epic builds, as in a game like Risk of Rain 2. Except, as a PvP
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