It’s hard to stand out in today’s overcrowded gaming market, especially in the highly competitive, make-or-break multiplayer landscape. We don’t envy a developer who is currently making a game that requires thousands of players to log in every day. However, the right combination of an interesting concept and good execution could be the right solution, and SquadBlast could be on to something.
The enthusiasm UltraHorse has for its side-scrolling multiplayer shooter is clear. This game is essentially a 2D hero shooter, with a handful of unique characters, all with their own weapons and skills to master. While the version of the game we played is still quite early, we tried two or three different modes, including objective ones like Payload and Conquest. It doesn’t sound that exciting on paper, but once we figured out how it all works, we had a lot of fun.
However, let’s rewind a little. Anatolys Ropotovs, UltraHorse CEO and Founder, and Game Director on this title, provides some context: “SquadBlast is a side-scrolling tactical shooter set in 2041, where the squads must battle a monopoly of corporate and government, defending themselves in these times. The squads are here to rebuild this crumbling world,” he tells us.
The result is up to 5 vs. 5 matches where your class and weapons make a big difference to how you play. We tried out a number of characters, but found the most success with the Healer, who wields an assault rifle and pistol, and his special ability heals allies within a fairly wide radius. Others use shotguns which, in a 2D game where you can’t see beyond what’s on the screen, seems like a sensible choice. Between all the weapons and unique abilities, there is a fair amount of variation.
It helps a lot that SquadBlast just feels good to play. The controls are pretty simple, revolving around the thumbsticks for movement and aiming, a generous double jump, and almost FPS-esque controls like the right trigger to fire and Square to reload, for example. Ropotovs explains that the idea is to be some sort of ranged version of a fighter like Super Smash Bros. in the sense that it should be easy to pick up and have fun, but also have some depth for competitive players.
He says similar games like SquadBlast didn’t necessarily have that depth: “There were a few games like Soldier, or later Awesomenauts… They haven’t been as deep as first-person shooters. Maybe they didn’t have the full spectrum of skills, or they weren’t well balanced. When we started building this game, we thought we could improve every little experience in it [genre]It’s obviously important to Ropotovs that the game caters to both the hardcore and casual users, and things like the inclusion of rollback netcode talk about that.
Our playing experience was extremely smooth and as we got to grips with our favorite healer character, little hidden features started to surface, reinforcing that idea of depth. You can dodge, parry or counter enemy fire depending on which character you’re playing, you can slide down ramps to gain speed, there are hidden powerups to watch out for on certain cards – there’s more to the game than just aiming and shooting, which makes it surprisingly dynamic.
It seems a big part of striking that balance between easy to pick up and hard to master is based on player feedback. “Because this is our debut title, we spent a lot of time with players at events to see what sticks and what doesn’t,” says Ropotovs. “We tried different gameplay styles, weapons and skills to find out what 2022 gamers would like to play.” Classes are shaped in part by these player experiences, such as the base class soldier with a missile weapon to help newcomers who may have difficulty aiming.
From what we’ve played, there’s real potential in the game to fill a niche. Each mode is fun, it plays very smoothly and experimenting with the different characters showed that there is more to it than meets the eye. SquadBlast is coming to PS5 and PS4 in the future, but a playtest is now taking place on Steam.
Are you excited about SquadBlast? What do you think of this style of competitive shooter? Tell us in the comments below.
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