What the Box?

Online shooters have evolved a lot in the last decade, especially when it comes to realism and graphics. However, there’s only so much they can do when it comes to gameplay mechanics, which is why most of the modern FPS games feel the same in many ways. Original concepts are hard to come by, and the ones who try to develop new ways to enjoy shooters usually have to do a really good job in order to attract enough players.

What the Box? is a unique shooter that features a couple of interesting ideas, the most important of which is what every player is actually a cardboard box indistinguishable from one another. This may sound confusing in theory, and it actually is once you start playing, but it’s also a lot of fun if you give it a chance and see just how difficult it is to keep track of everyone.

To make matters even more confusing, the map itself is full of boxes as well, which helps players blend in with the environment. There are multiple game modes to choose from as well, depending on how you would like to challenge yourself. Hence, there’s a classic deathmatch mode that plays out as you would expect, as well as a mode that only provides you with one bullet, and the only way to reload is to kill another player with it.

There are flaws that might get in the way as well, such as the fact that the map gets old soon and there are no alternatives at the moment. Granted, more will be added along the way, but it would have been nice to have some variety from the start. You can switch between first and third-person point of view, and you sometimes do so by mistake, which causes quite a few problems.

As for the graphics, everything looks more or less nice, and there are even some high-end post-processing effects that can be added on top to improve visual quality. Hence, whether you want Blood, SSAO or Ambient Occlusion, they are all available from the graphics menu. On the other hand, these are not very impressive when the map lacks personality.

All things being equal, What the Box? is not exactly GOTY material at the moment, but at least the idea is original and engaging. Thus, if more content is added and the gameplay mechanics are refined, things could be looking up for the game in the future.