LawBreakers Alpha Preview

This past few years we have seen a steady rise in arena and character based shooters ranging from Battleborn to the very successful Blizzard title Overwatch. Now we have new IP LawBreakers from Bosskey Studios that has thrown itself into the ring to compete with the other arena shooters. I played through the majority of the early alpha and can say that the game has some promise but still has a long way to go in order to compete with the likes of Overwatch.

With only four characters to try out and two maps there’s unfortunately not a lot of content to test out, however what I did play through had some promise. To start off, the two maps Promenade and Grandview while interesting in design aren’t exactly spectacular or overwhelmingly complicated. While there isn’t specifically anything wrong with the maps, they are fairly generic other than the zero gravity zones. When looking at other games there was plenty of intractable objects and a wide variety of paths that allowed me to take varied paths to the objective, however LawBreakers has some very strict paths that you can take which makes that game grow stale very quickly. I found that while the zero gravity zones provided me with some very unique movement opportunities it actually made all other aspects of the map rather pointless as most of the fun parts of fighting were done in the middle of the map and outside the map was nothing more than a means to the middle. To be honest it feels weird having a major mechanic like zero gravity only occur on such a small section of the map, although having it on the entire map doesn’t seem right either. I think that given some time Bosskey will find a happy medium but for now things just feel very linear with map movement and design.

Moving on to character design, I can certainly say that the game’s characters face the same problem that the maps do. At my time of testing the game, there are four characters available and that will hopefully change in the full release because compared to other arena shooters, four is simply not enough. To start the character’s base movement speed feels exceedingly slow and while they all have movement abilities it still slows down the game far too much. Each character has a unique set of abilities that allows them to outmaneuver and out damage their opponent.

Kitsune is the one I had the most experience with so I will begin with her. She is a fast and very mobile melee fighter who excels at close quarter combat as long as she can get the jump on her opponents. She is definitely not suited for facing opponents head on as she uses a pair of katanas and a close range shotgun that require you to be very close to your target before you can deal any serious damage. In order for her to work her way around enemies, Kitsune has a grapple hook that holds three charges and allows her to swing all around the map or even pull herself towards her target.

Maverick is similar to Kitsune in that she has an extremely mobile skill set who also have a very unique style of combat. Instead of grapple hooks she uses her jetpack to outmaneuver and out play her opponents. While Kitsune relied on close range and surprise attacks, Maverick is more like a mobile turret using her Vulcan Gatling gun on her shoulder to shred her opponents from up close and at a distance. On top of that she has what I like to call the hulk smash in which she plummets from the sky and deals massive AOE damage to anyone that gets too close.

Breacher is a character that doesn’t really specialize in any aspect of combat, instead he’s just an all around solid character. He is more suited to running and gunning and definitely better suited for newer players as he plays like most FPS characters. He is a perfect asset for your team when it comes to support and suppression, however overall he doesn’t really shine when it comes to killing other players.

Cronos is quite possibly the most interesting of all the characters as he dishes out chunks of damage and can take massive amounts of damage while dishing it out. Unfortunately, he also has little to no mobility whatsoever and therefore can get caught out fairly easily in a 2v1 situation. His rocket launcher when used properly can be extremely devastating and you will find yourself wanting to avoid an enemy Cronos as someone who knows how to play him will carry their team.

Moving on to the game sound I can definitely say that the game has some of the best sounds out here and were very reminiscent of Quake and Doom for me. When it comes down to firing your guns there is nothing more satisfying then the rounds leaving the gun’s barrel, except perhaps the rounds actually striking your opponent.

Now down to the last part, the actual game mode itself, which is in essence Capture the Flag with a unique twist. At the beginning of the match you have to battle in the middle of the map to grab a battery that is then brought back to your base to be charged. Once the battery reaches 100 percent the game is over, however there is one major difference that has some people angry and others happy. If one team steals the battery from the other and its at say 98 percent charge it will actually maintain that charge and the other team only has to charge it up by two percent. So in a sense you can let the enemy team charge the battery up and then grab the battery and win the game. This may seem like a fun idea in theory, however in practice it is actually extremely aggravating if you can defend a battery for most of the match only to have the enemy slip by once and have them clutch the game. I had this happen to me so many times it actually grew old very quickly. In my opinion they need to have the battery lose charge rapidly when it is disconnected from a station or something along those lines or they will find out very quickly that this mode simply does not work.

Overall LawBreakers has a lot of problems, however it also has a lot of potential. This is definitely a bare bone alpha of a game that requires a lot more polish, but it does show a lot of potential for a more adult themed arena shooter. If they can tweak the maps a bit to encourage out navigating your opponent and add in a significant amount of other characters, the game could have a lot of potential. Only time will tell if Bosskey can create a truly unique arena shooter, despite all my grievances I did enjoy my time with the alpha and will definitely look forward to the changes they make for the beta.