Eximius: Seize the Frontline Review

Coffee and keyboard at the ready. Time to dive into some Eximius: Seize the Frontline, developed, and published, by Ammobox, a Malaysian based indie studio. Eximius delivers both RTS and FPS genres simultaneously with two primary play styles; Commander and Officer. The battles are 5v5 capture the points, but players can also choose co-op mission modes as well as a skirmish. Two factions host a multitude of perks and abilities. Global Security Force (or G.I. Joe) use engineers to build structures and capture objectives and comprise familiar looking modern day tanks and infantry. Axeron Industries don a futuristic appearance and their abilities utilise a different energy source as well as a focus on robotics. Both have access to battlesuits, giving players unique abilities and weaponry to change the tide of battle or solidify their position.

Commander is essentially the RTS half of the game. Players take a birds-eye view and construct different parts of the base, assign troops to certain objectives or locations, and generally assess the battlefield from a strategic point of view. Officer means you’re down in the trenches, 5v5, utilising the armoury or battlesuits available to wreak havoc. Combining these two styles is what garnered my interest for Eximius in the first place, and while it isn’t the first to do this, it has been implemented better here.

While the two primary roles generally dictate what you will have access to, players must adapt their approaches to combat constantly, regardless, which is where Eximius really hits the nail on the head. Gameplay is ever changing, often delivering an unexpected twist making for nail-biting conclusions to rounds. As an officer, you must select your weapons wisely, depending on the enemies you encounter. Iron Guard units will lay waste to unprepared soldiers who don’t have armour piercing weapons at their disposal, and a proximity mine can make a tank look like a paper balloon. Then add the final bit of spice - the battlesuits, and you have a very colourful spectacle from handgun to homing explosive.

The concept is similar to that of Destiny in which you have different abilities with each battlesuit, much like the difference between guardians. Except the battlesuits have less depth individually and are comprised of two actions and one trait. On top of all this, players can switch between Commander and Officer roles if they wish.

Eximius does offer a tutorial library where players take on bite-sized battles to familiarise themselves with the pacing of the firefighting and how to capture objectives, operate battlesuits, and general controls. Challenges such as ‘defeat the tank before it reaches the objective’, are a great way for you to experiment with weapons and equipment to see which is best suited against heavy armoured vehicles.

Despite this, the missing piece to this tutorial is a mock battle, or some sort of hand-holding that considers the next step for the player not so versed in this hybrid. You can set up offline custom games to get a feel for what to expect, but it happens very quickly and new players are likely to find themselves overrun. Paying attention early on and familiarising with the battlesuit abilities is key, as well as understanding your chosen benefits as commander before the battle begins. Without this ‘next step’, however, I fear for the games’ accessibility. I honestly loved the gameplay after some time. But this is the problem. Not every player has got the patience of a saint these days, and in this particular instance, I can’t blame some for jumping ship before the going gets good. In the early stages of play, I too wondered if it would get better. Even though it does, I fear it will be too late for the majority.

Unfortunately, the AI doesn’t help in this regard either. Sometimes they can prove very useful, more so when you take on the Officer role. Units are assigned to you regularly enough and structures are built in logical locations, such as an armoury placed at a newly taken objective. This gives you ample time to think about ground strategy, how to pincer the next objective based on your other officer locations, and not have to worry about resources and maintaining defences on all three fronts. However, when selecting the Commander role yourself you have to pay attention to every detail, every second, or else officers will just smash their heads into countless enemies, repeatedly. Units can also block players from reaching their battlesuit, simply wrong place wrong time… all the time. I can safely say, this game has me wanting to abuse friendly fire more than I care to admit. Playing as the Officer is far less stressful but as a core part of the gameplay here, ignoring the RTS side is not an option.

Ironically, if you don’t have sufficient numbers of dummy AIs to follow you, you will get destroyed in combat going solo. Sure, players can gear themselves well and slip into a battlesuit to gain a bit of an advantage, but the enemy accuracy is next to none. Basically, your allies are braindead, can’t live with them, but you certainly can’t live without them. I approached this understanding that their role was necessary, but I didn’t treat them like friends. Pay attention to the map at all times, be patient and wait for back up, or retreat where appropriate, to avoid being overrun. Ultimately, this leads to a far better experience in the fight.

As said earlier, the gameplay on the ground is diverse, but Officer isn’t the only style that offers variety. Playing as Commander, you must choose buffs consisting of three different types.

Global Security Force (GSF)

Infantry: optimising troops and vehicles with various improvements such as bullet damage reduction.

Armour: focuses primarily on vehicles, extra armour plating and increased repair speed for engineers.

Fortification. The name speaks for itself: place down any structure with 30% more health and use this to gain essential footholds to launch assaults from.

Axeron Industries

Robotics: similar to that of the Infantry buff for GSF, buffing troops and adding the ability to drop a small group of Ironguard soldiers to a selected area. It also adds a function to the Mule unit, allowing it to capture objectives such as A, B, and C points, or resource stations.

Energy: technology allows for laser weaponry, high damaging and effective against infantry as well as high armoured adversaries.

Stealth: phantom troops, radar jammers, and soundwave weaponry are useful here to confuse and infiltrate.

All information on what these entail are available for players to review in the ‘Intel’ heading at the main menu. Knowing what these buffs can do and playing to such strengths is important, i.e; there’s no point in selecting the Fortification buff and then just spamming units, sending them to the slaughter without proper defenses to fall back on. Puppeteering fellow officers to achieve certain objectives is always the most enjoyable part of an RTS in my opinion. The options for doing so include capturing, fortifying or defending a point of interest, moving and shooting on sight, as well as assigning up to six units to an officer or vehicle.

The controls are pretty simple and easy to grasp. Mapping to a controller is difficult because it is physically impossible to map both Commander and Officer commands, meaning you must have a mouse and keyboard for something. However, this is not a gripe. Separating control styles, one for RTS play and the other for FPS is advised. For some reason, the crouch button must be held continuously rather than toggled. A seemingly minor irritation but it did mean fixing the command to a location I otherwise would have something else important, to avoid disrupting movement or camera rotation. A suggestion on how to map a controller for Officer gameplay can be found from the Steam Community.

PvP is essentially non-existent. Steam Charts recorded 31 players during my playtime. Even when coming across difficult to beat players, if matchmaking actually found others willing, they were soon overrun by my fellow AI troops with the computer as Commander. There seems to be a core imbalance in the difficulty that persists online at the moment due to the lack of players filling the Commander role. Furthermore, this also means that the general expectations are the same. Eximius reaches somewhat of a paradox: it has the means to offer players versatility and endless strategies, but without the players wanting to take on the Commander role (if there are any players at all!) the AI takes over and pretty much does the same thing in the same way - annihilation!

What Eximius: Seize the Frontline does superbly, is completely overshadowed by an uphill battle as soon as the tutorial is finished. Either Ammobox are overconfident in the patience of the player, or they assume that players will pick the gameplay up very quickly. Granted, if you are familiar with RTS then you might not struggle here. I for one felt lucky enough to understand the basics and how to adapt to the game’s unique challenges by employing push strategies I have used in the past. But, there was a swift realisation that, as soon as the tutorial is finished, Eximius hurls you into the far end of the pool without supervision. PvP as it stands is a slow burn due to the lack of players available for match making, as your game unfolds more will join, but who wants to constantly join mid-game, down by 100 points? I honestly wish this game delivered more, I enjoyed it a great deal, eventually. But truthfully I think this is it. If they want to gain players they must make the game more accessible. There is no good relying on the specific audience to RTS or FPS either. It isn’t better than the FPS games on the market to appeal to that audience specifically. My personal experience means nothing when the average player will be forced into frustration through a lack of understanding and being overwhelmed by a very competent Commander from the AI.