A new shooter named Plan 8 is in the works from Pearl Abyss, and the game's development team contains one of the co-creators of Counter-Strike. One of the most influential multiplayer first-person shooter games of all time, Counter-Strike originally launched on PC nearly two decades ago as a mod for Half-Life, and the game's subsequent popularity caused Valve, Half-Life's creators, to purchase Counter-Strike and make it a legitimate title in their library.
Counter-Stike has gone through a number of sequels and spin-offs over the years, but the two most popular versions of the game remain Counter-Strike: Source, a full remake of the original title in Valve's Source engine, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive, which has been consistently supported since it's 2012 release. The game earned itself a bit of controversy last year when Valve made CS:GO free-to-play, causing the game to receive over 14,000 negative reviews on Steam in a single day. Although it's been years since any new Counter-Strike games were announced, now it looks as if players will have another option.
Plan 8 is being developed by Pearl Abyss and Minh Le, one of the original designers of the first Counter-Strike back when it was still a mod for Half-Life. The game is an "exosuit MMO shooter," said to combine action-packed gameplay and realistic graphics with open-world MMO elements and built on Pearl Abyss' own proprietary game engine. The player's exosuits, which are said to allow them superhuman power and extraordinary capabilities, can be equipped with different types of "Gears" which, according to Plan 8's announcement, are said to open up "gameplay experiences never-before-seen in any game."
As evident in the trailer above, different exosuits have different capabilities, such as slicing through charging enemies or sprouting drone wings when a player jumps out of a window. Unlike games like Destiny and Anthem, here exosuits are less sleek and have a more Mad Max feel to them. Weapons, too, are purported to play an important role in Plan 8, and can also be modified by the player. According to Pearl Abyss, this modification is not set to any kind of standard format but instead allows players to customize their weapons "based on their own creative ideas."
Judging from the gameplay shown above, there will be a wide variety of different customization options for players in Plan 8, as well as plenty of human versus robot violence. While set firmly in a much more futuristic and science fiction world than Counter-Strike, developer Minh Le's pedigree of crafting engaging and replayable multiplayer levels will hopefully shine through and deliver something equally as entertaining and long-lasting. As a title which seems to allow players to be any type of Metal Gear Solid boss character they want to, Plan 8 looks pretty darn neat so far.
Source: Pearl Abyss