'LawBreakers' Beta Impressions: The Future of Arena Shooters Is Bright

If you were to ask me how my weekend went, I would tell you that it's chaotic, and that I fragged quite a few other players during my time with the games open beta. That's not to say that I wasn't good. I was decent. On PC I found myself constantly outmatched by the amazing talent of those who play shooters on PC. On console I found myself constantly in my comfort zone, which provided me an advantage against players whom aren't used to games such as Titanfall 2, Overwatch, or Quake Champions.

Instead I found myself being challenged on either platform due to the learning curve provided. I wasn't given the ability to find aim assist helping me garnish an ungodly amount of headshots. I also found myself limited by my own skill. Not that I am horrible at shooters, because I'm not.

Instead I found myself limited because I was no longer in a league of my own. I was in a league where truly talented players were coming out of the woodworks. To be honest, LawBreakers doesn't fall into the typical crouch in a corner shoot, then run. Instead it's a game that fit perfectly into the arena shooter mold that games such as Unreal Tournament, DOOM, and Quake were known for in the 90's.

A lot of this is because the game is fast paced. Combat takes place at breakneck speeds while its slower moments are attributed to the elimination of the opposing team. Lets be real here. The game doesn't ever truly slow down. There's always gun fire. Some of the learning curve also comes from the games ability to fail on communicating what your characters abilities do.

Luckily, if you are one to go for trial and error, you'll be right at home. In the beta I was like many of the players I encountered. I would bounce classes to see what each does. For the weekend I found myself quite comfortable on the Vanguard, which is a rocket propelled (think a character with jet engines on her back here) woman with a gatling gun mounted to her arm.

Her abilities consisted of primarily quick maneuverability thanks to her ability 'Afterburners'. Additionally she was also a character that would help manipulate gravity using her ultimate ability called "Starfall", which would generate an anti-gravity field near where she landed. Her third ability was quite interesting as she would throw asteroid grenades around in hopes to annihilate her enemies.

Since I was quite comfortable with the vanguard, you can probably imagine that much of my weekend was spent with the class, and would commonly find myself playing one of the games leading ladies.

That is exactly where my weekend would begin after a few hours of darting from character to character. The most enjoyable part of the experience wasn't knowing that my teams composition could have a meta, it was knowing that one wasn't there, and that it was overcoming the games use of gravity that was the biggest challenge. It was because of this very element that Boss Key Productions has proven themselves as a worthy contender when it comes to the FPS genre.

A lot of this is due to the fact that gravity anomalies take place on each of the games maps. In some maps you may find these anomalies in centralized areas while others will be off to the sides allowing players to adapt a zero gravity based combat scheme. The only real talent here is the talent to move and ensure that you can make kills that matter for your own survival, but also to ensure victory for the team.

If Cliff Bleszinski and Boss Key Productions have shown anything with the games open beta, it's that arena shooters are back, and theirs is definitely here to stay ahead of its August 8th release date.