Co-op survival shooter Scavengers will be coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The "player-versus-environment-versus-player" game was announced two years ago and is being created by Midwinter Entertainment. Midwinter is helmed by Josh Holmes, who once worked with 343 Industries and served as the creative director for the studio's first mainline Halo game, Halo 4.
Few video game genres are harder to stand out in than the field of competitive online shooters. Big names like Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Fortnite dominate the industry while smaller projects struggle to assemble enough players to stay online. A lot of the genre's massive success can be attributed to Halo: Combat Evolved, which brought online shooters into the mainstream in a big way. The franchise has had significant staying power since, and player character Master Chief is now almost as easily recognized as Mario in the video game mascot field. While certainly not as influential as the original, Holmes's Halo 4 still received broad acclaim and is considered a very worthwhile entry in the series.
Holmes is now attempting to bring his Halo experience to a new online shooter project called Scavengers, a co-op sci-fi survival game that pits teams of players against the environment and each other in their quest to survive a world ravaged by freezing cold. As reported by Gematsu, Midwinter Entertainment recently revealed that the game will be ported to PS4 and Xbox One. While the PC version can expect a release sometime next year, the console versions' release windows are still "to be determined." Furthermore, registration is now open for a playtest weekend set to run from the 18th to the 20th of this month, which will give players an early look at the game's survival mechanics and the grim, mutated beasts that patrol the icy wastes. A gameplay trailer can be viewed below to give interested gamers an idea of what to expect.
The gameplay is pretty impressive for a free-to-play title like this. This early on, it's hard to tell exactly what to expect from the finished version of the game, but the flashy abilities that were shown off in the trailer do look fun to use, even if it's unclear what exactly some of them do. Of course, if anyone can make a free survival shooter stand out these days, it would probably be a Halo veteran like Josh Holmes.
Fans who don't make it into the playtest weekend still have a long time to wait before they can experience this sinister frozen land for themselves, especially if they want to play on console. There are definitely a lot of reasons to get interested in a game like Scavengers. The idea of a frozen, snow-choked wilderness is relatively untapped for a post-apocalyptic game, but at the same time, fans of the recent RPG hit Wasteland 3 should find some familiar sights here. The sinister AI pulling players' strings seems like a very compelling character as well. The release of Scavengers may be a long way off, but on the bright side, there are plenty of shooters to tide fans over until then.
Source: Gematsu