Unvanquished

Multiplayer shooters are all about having fun and constantly getting better at the game, because it’s not all that pleasant to learn everything there is to know about it from the first few minutes. Hence, legendary titles like Call of Duty, Battlefield, or Half-Life managed to make a name for themselves by featuring scalable gameplay levels, which means that both beginners and advanced players can find something to stay excited about even today.

Unvanquished is not exactly a well of originality, but it’s certainly a different view on the genre, at least nowadays. Hence, while the idea was borrowed from Tremors and the underlying concept was already used in Alien vs. Predator, the mechanics are heavily modified to fit the new setting. Hence, a lot of fun lies buried underneath all those layers of unoriginality.

To begin with, the game is a classic multiplayer-only experience, which means that there is no single-player campaign and barely any backstory on the entire thing. As such, there are two factions going head-to-head against each other: the aliens and the humans. The latter are not your typical AK-47-wielding humans, on the other hand, because everything takes place in a distant future, featuring classy futuristic weapons and all the turrets you can imagine.

Whether you play as an alien or as a human, you get certain perks regardless of what you choose. Thus, the central idea revolves around base building and defending, because each team is split into builders and warriors, depending on how the situation requires it. Naturally, worker units cannot really attack, but they can build defensive structures that do that for them, such as the almighty turret.

Many other differences become apparent after a few matches, such as the mobility of the aliens. Just like in AvP, they can walk on walls and the ceiling, making them really difficult to target with a normal gun. However, they also severely lack the hitpoints to deal with more than a handful of bullets, which means that they must rely on ambushes and stealth attacks in order to get the most out of their abilities.

Since Unvanquished is still under heavy development, it does have a few glitches here and there, as well as many things that need to be balanced better. However, the idea is commendable and you should definitely give it a go, just to see if it’s the right thing for you.