Nexxon and Boss Key Games announced that the open beta for their upcoming first person shooter, Lawbreakers, is now available on Steam for everyone to try out.
Unlike other team-based FPS games, Lawbreakers doesn’t give its heroes a personality so to speak. Instead each of the team’s members are broken down into unique roles – the chain gun wielding Vanguard, the all-around assault class the Enforcer, the vertically mobile assassin class among others. Unique to Lawbreakers is also a low gravity mechanic where portions of the map are entrapped within a bubble that allows players to jump higher but with a lower fall rate.
In a press-release announcing the availability of the Open Beta until July 5th, Nexxon provided a brief rundown of new features available in the Open Beta:
New Map: Vertigo – located in a remote location in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Vertigo is a high-altitude reconnaissance outpost with near suborbital elevation;
New Mode: Uplink – capture the uplink in the centre of the map and deliver to your team base, continuing to protect it until points are earned;
Weapon Stickers – players can test a new customisation feature and earn a special Beta participant Weapon Sticker by completing five matches during the event. This reward transfers to the full release of the game at launch.
Lawbreakers will be releasing on both PlayStation 4, PS4 Pro and Windows PC with the base game priced at $39.99 CDN.
Lawbreakers, the brand new first person shooter from Cliff Bleszinski – the mind behind Gears of War – will have its first closed beta from March 16th thru the 19th. Alongside the announcement of the closed beta and confirmation that Lawbreakers will be playable once again at PAX East.
If you are in Boston this coming weekend for PAX East Lawbreakers will be playable on the Expo floor thanks to the efforts of publisher Nexon at booth #13055.
In the latest Lawbreakers developer update – which you can view below – both CliffyB and Rohan Revas give viewers a tease about what is coming with the closed beta. They are very clear that this is not the same game that we enjoyed during the closed alpha last summer. In the many months since that time the developers have added new maps, new modes and possibly a new support class.
A new logo and tagline for Lawbreakers has also been released. Nexon is now using the tagline “Gravity – Defying – Combat” to promote the title.
Cliff Bleszinski’s upcoming role-based team objective shooterLawbreakers has returned onto the scene with a brand new trailer and news about the games upcoming beta.
This brand new trailer quickly inter-cuts footage from several existing roles that we already have tried during the game’s various private alpha tests, including the blade wielding assassin and the chain gun equipped vanguard. Joining them will be a yet as unnamed class that is able to duel wield pistols and teleport a short distance if the brief glimpse in this new trailer is any indication.
Players can now sign-up for the next beta test on the game’s official website, which will take place sometime in 2017. Lawbreakers is a title that we have previewed a few times – both in written and video format. Apparently the fan feedback from the previous alpha wasn’t exactly positive, with some feeling that the game was just too frantic and fast. Lawbreakers will be a premium priced game, that was originally intended to be free-to-play, and will be published by Nexon America.
Team-based, hero focused first person shooters are all the rage right now and the undisputed king is Blizzard’s Overwatch. In an interview, CliffyB compared Blizzard’s latest success to a digital game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Our comrades at Eurogamer had a chance to sit down with CliffyB at E3 last week about his new game, Lawbreakers.
Comparisons to Overwatch wasn’t the only thing that CliffyB discussed, he was asked about the chance that the game might have cross-play between a potential console version and the already playable PC game. He shot the idea down saying:
“We like money and we like to keep the lights on .. we’ve talked to them [Microsoft & Sony] .. The thing about controllers is that it is going to be tricky. If we get around to doing a console port we don’t want to do cross-play. If you do keyboard & mouse VS controller the person on keyboard & mouse is going to win 9 times out of ten.”
Another tidbit that Cliffy dropped was the fact the developers at BossKey Studios are considering removing Iron Sights from the game:
“The other thing that we are looking at is ‘will we keep Iron Sights in the game?’. It is debatable right now, when you give players Iron Sights they play it like Destiny or Call of Duty.”
Towards the end of the interview Overwatch was brought up. The interview asked Cliff if the constant comparisons were tiring, as they seem to come up quite a bit. Here is what CliffyB said:
“People, when they see something, they want to put it in a bucket with something else. There is some overlap that we have characters, guns & what not. Our art style is very gritty, [Blizzard’s] art style is super bright colors, very cartoony – almost animeish… them as a game is so much Rock, Paper, Scissors. If I have the wrong character, I’m dead!”
How do you feel about this comparison between Overwatch and Lawbreakers? No cross-play between a potential console version and the PC build does not really surprise me given the fact that Lawbreakers feels like it was built with a keyboard & mouse in mind. For my initial impressions check out my write-up from E3 2016 where I played the game against developers from BossKey Studios. The next playable alpha for Lawbreakers is expected in July and potential players can sign up for the next alpha test on the official Lawbreakers website.
The man behind Microsoft’s chainsaw wielding Gears of War franchise, Cliff Bleszinski left Epic Games back in 2012 but he hasn’t been sitting idle in the subsequent four years. He’s formed a new studio, BossKey, and they brought an alpha version of their upcoming arena shooter Lawbreakers with them to Los Angeles last week. After playing several rounds of this in your face shooter at E3 with the development team and quite a few hours with the Friends & Family alpha at home, I’m here to tell you how CliffyB is about to come back in a big way!
Lawbreakers is a role-based first person shooter with a focus on vertical gameplay built using the Unreal 4 engine. Just like the other titles that ClifyBhas had a hand in creating, the combat in this game is frantic, somewhat twitchy and gorier than most R rated movies. The emphasis on verticality during combat isn’t just a bullet point on some press-release, it is essential to succeeding in Lawbreakers. During a match it isn’t uncommon to watch your foes & teammates swing across the map, jetpack around objectives and slam downard onto the ground in the middle of a pack of rivals. Freedom of movement and quick speed are core gameplay components to what sets Lawbreakers apart from other role-based shooters.
Players should be fully aware that CliffyB’s trademark ‘*%#$% you’ attitude is all over the world of Lawbreakers, and especially within the personalities of the characters. The grey and brown pallets from Gears of War and other interactive experiences that Cliffy has had a say in are replaced with bright particle effects, colorful textures and wonderfully rendered explosions. I suppose there is a bit of juxtaposition between the bright graphics and watching your shaved head, rocket slinging character telling the competition that she is going to ‘fucking kill you all’. The whole aesthetic package feels like that trademark rough attitude combined with brighter colors that we’ve seen from other role based shooters.
Each team in Lawbreakers is comprised of four separate roles, from which teams can mix & match and swap at any point upon death. Unlike a competing game like Overwatch role switching, at least based upon the several hours I have spent with the game, is more about finding roles that you are comfortable with rather than reacting to your opponent’s strategy. Here is a brief rundown of all four available roles:
Assassins – Agile and able to swing long distances across the map, Assassins are able to deal damage using two sharpened blades and a powerful energy shotgun for up close encounters. The fast paced grappling hook can be used to not only to escape heavy firefights but also to pull yourself toward weakened foes to land the killing blow.
Enforcers – If you’re looking for a run and gun class perhaps you should consider the enforcers. They carry a standard issue assault rifle but for all that they lack in unique or powerful weapons they gain in support abilities. Enforcers are able to speed up time itself around friendly targets, they can also use an electromagnetic charge to disable opponents. An enforcer’s ultimate allow them to unleash a powerful rocket attack.
Titans – Best described as the “tankiest” role that Lawbreakers has to offer the Titans are all about taking as much punishment as possible and dishing out just as much pain in return. They are armed with both a chain lightning gun and a hammerhead rocket launcher to decimate their foes. A Titan’s ultimate unleashes a torrent of built-up electrical energy burning any enemies in their path.
Vanguards – Want to take to the skies? The Vanguard is the class for the aspiring pilots everywhere, with their jetpack allowing them to thrust forward at great speed towards the battle. In terms of armaments the Vanguards use a poweful chaingun as their primary weapon, with a hand-mounted pulse blast as their backup. A Vanguard’s ultimate allows them to unleash a targeted mid range missile blast which is almost always a one hit kill.
During E3 we played a brand new mode that tasked both teams with capturing control points that would randomly spawn around the map. The team that captured the most points out of a set of best of 3 would win the round, these control points really emphasized the frantic vertical nature of Lawbreaker‘sfirst person combat. Another mode, Battery, was available during the Friends and Family alpha that was held over Steam this past weekend. Each of these modes allow players to think strategically and try out their favorite roles in different ways. Folks from Nexxon have assured us that Lawbreakers will not be a free-to-play title and will not be a $59.99 USD release – it will enter Early Access after several more alpha tests over the course of the summer.
The most fun I had playing a game at the recent PAX East convention wasn’t as I had expected one of the many Xbox games on demo (gears 4, Mirrors Edge 2) or even the VR experiences. It was in fact a new twist on the old school genre of the arena shooter. That game is called LawBreakers from Nexon, and it’s incredible. Arena shooter are nothing new, this year alone we have Gearbox and 2K’s cell shaded Battle Born, Blizzard’s massive Overwatch, and now LawBreakers. Arena shooters it would seem are back, and I for one could not be happier. So it should be no surprise that my favorite game was a shooter, but the one it was might surprise you. That game was LawBreakers.
LawBreakers was a bit of a stealth game prior to this PAX, the only thing I had seen for it was a B roll of highlights and a really well done CGI story trailer. Last we heard it was to be a free to play arena shooter with some moba like elements. The game was basically completely off my radar because of that. Now it has reemerged, a resurgent force in the new pantheon of arena shooters. The free to play model is gone, the game will now be exclusive to steam, and everything looks great. Since I hadn’t heard any of this prior to the convention, I was quite surprised to upon reaching the floor PAX find that it had a booth of its own, and quite a large one. The booth was adorned with character art, and a large screen playing some highlights of the game.
The roll playing on the large screen in back was what first attracted me to the game, and I was not disappointed. A fast ninja character swung outside the map to reach higher ground, a heavy soldier launched rockets, and a rocket carrying guy fired at his feet to launch himself up the air. My interest was peaked. It turned out that LawBreakers was a fast fun, class based arena shooter, so I got in line to give it a try. Since this was the media hour there weren’t many people waiting and I was able to get in quite quickly. As I settled my butt down in to one of the DxRacer chairs I really had no idea what to expect, I knew this was going to be a shooter with abilities, similar to several other AAA arena shooters scheduled for this year, but it really doesn’t look like those other ones at all. Instead it has the aesthetics of Quake or a Doom, with its own unique twist.
The game is really pretty, and as I got started I couldn’t help but look around at the beautiful world that had been created, but I found myself with no time to admire it as the game was beginning. To get an idea of how fast this game is you really have to play it, but I’ll do my best to describe it. I picked the generic soldier character with a rifle, sprint ability, a grenade, and a rocket launcher that you activated and then it sort of charged up and you could lock on and fire. He also had a secondary weapon that shot a large ball of lightning which a developer explained to me was basically a shotgun.
For this demo we were playing a 5v5 mode which was a sort of a capture the flag where you would pick up the flag which was called a “Battery” and then take it to charging station, where it would slowly charge and when it was full your team scored a point. The game was a timed mode, so the most points at the end of the time won. Our team managed to score two points in about 15 minutes of game play.
My team was composed of two of the fast movement based character Kitsune (classed as an assassin), one me (playing as the Breacher, classed as a gunner) and two Maverick’s (classed as a skirmisher) this was a pretty fair team comp. The skirmisher is a heavy gunner, the assassin is mobile, fragile, DPS unit, and I fell somewhere in between, giving us plenty of movement and ability to counter the enemies heavies and firepower to back it up. The only class missing was the games most advertised a heavy rocket solder called Cronos (classes as a Titan).
Teams thus assembled we began, and oh what a beginning, the battery began in the center and both teams rushed to it. I was also given a sprint ability which made me really much faster than the rest of the other players, but was very limited. So I used it to sprint to the center of the map. The center area of the map we played on (the Grand Canyon) was one of the games signature zero G areas. These areas see you able to jump much higher and sort of float, and are the reason I found this game so unique. Most if not all of the characters in the game have a movement ability, which comes in greatly handy when you’re dealing with an area that has no gravity in it. I found that if I jumped headed for a ledge I would sometimes make it and sometime snot which felt really fun and interesting as a game mechanic
As the game continued I got a little better at this area, and could after some time manage to get myself out of the zero g area by shooting or using grenades. My team eked out a win after about 15 minutes of game play, and it wasn’t easy! The battery was constantly back and forth between our two teams, and the great level design meant that when the battery was in your base charging you couldn’t just camp it because there were too many ways in. I also want to mention that this game features the older school method of a large health pool that does not regenerate. So when you have low healthy (which will happen a lot) you have two options, first you can stay in and maybe die, or you can disengage and go to a health station, of which I found three on the map, and stand in it for a while to regain health. This was a cool mechanic that I wish more modern shooters would use; I dislike the regenerating health that seems to be the standard, as it seems to encourage small quick engagements and then fleeing. Each different character also has a different amount of health, so your tanky Titan characters will be able to take more hits than say an assassin Kitsune.
The game does have melee, in the form of a kick, and thank god for that, because otherwise Kitsune (the assassin) would be so overpowered it would be sickening. She’s still quite powerful in the hands of a good player, but others will quickly learn to kick her back and shoot at her to prevent a slicing dicing death. These little bits of attention to detail, like giving the long range soldier a short range option in his secondary weapon, really made the game feel complete and balanced.
The whole game felt amazing, complete, and ready to go, I didn’t catch any major bugs or errors in my short time playing but I did notice that maps weren’t rotating so it seems like only that one map was ready at the time of the demo. The gravity elements didn’t feel contrived and all of the classes felt like they were balanced. Each one could do damage, get kills, and do enough damage to be considered viable. Overall I really cant wait to play this game when it eventually hits shelves.
you can sing up for the Alpha test phase of LawBreakers here.
