James Duggan
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IGNLatest Reviews
While a horde of zombie-like sleepers rushing mindlessly towards four men with guns may look familiar, GTFO’s early access version is anything but more of the same for the co-op shooter genre. Its stealth action is well thought-out and presents a lot of excellent opportunities for fun coordination with your squad. Its six enjoyably terrifying expeditions are creative and surprising enough to overlook the otherwise-plain lack of variety in its environment, enemies, and objectives. And while the symptoms of its early access state may be keenly felt where breadth of content is concerned there is no shortage of depth in GTFO. It’s clever, creepy, and already surprisingly polished, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.
If Borderlands 3 is what happens when a modern looter shooter doesn’t concern itself with the longevity of its item economy and daily quests then you can sign me up for Borderlands 4 right now. Being untethered from persistent servers and able to trade loot at will is a refreshing change of pace, but that’s hardly the only reason why this such an amazing co-op FPS. The sheer magnitude and diversity of its arsenal of fun and surprising weaponry is unmatched, and the striking amount of loving detail and variety packed into its energetic and replayable 30-hour campaign is what makes Borderlands 3 a high-point for the series – and the genre as a whole.
Risk of Rain 2’s early access hooked me with its fluid 3D action and distinct classes, and held my attention long after I’d seen everything it had to offer with its berserk roguelike progression, and the ability to squad up with friends. It’s networking woes could use some TLC, but that’s the only bad news. What’s here now is polished, fun, and immensely replayable, and what’s on the horizon leads me to believe I’ll be playing Risk of Rain 2 for a very long time to come.
Anthem comes closer to succeeding as a co-op action RPG than it does as a story-focused game, but only does so after a trying grind through its repetitive main quests. And even at that, its standout elements like the flashy combat and mechanically rich bosses still have a long way to go in terms of polish, variety, and balance. I have hope that with time BioWare can capitalize on its strengths and turn Anthem into something worth investing all these hours into, but all indications are there’s a lot of work to be done to reach that point.
Like a fresh recruit, Battlefield V was clearly deployed into action without adequate preparation. And a variety of bugs, underdeveloped features, and placeholder menu screens remind you of that at nearly every turn. However, there’s a great deal of raw potential here that could, with time and luck, be forged into one of the series’ best. Bold changes to Battlefield’s traditional gunplay, essential resources, and team dynamics create a strong foundation. On the single-player front, Battlefield V presents three short but distinct vignettes that weirdly focus on small-scale stealth instead of bombastic vehicular warfare. Their successful story moments aren’t really enough to go out of your way for but they’re worth playing once you’re here. Overall, Battlefield V can be lots of fun to play today, even if there’s still a lot of building left to do.
In spite of the serious concessions to depth made in the name of instant gratification, Call of Duty: Warzone’s beta remains thoroughly enjoyable. The battle royale formula is intact, albeit some of the aspects that usually make it so exciting and replayable are muted here. I’d love to see a reason to try something other than my Modern Warfare multiplayer loadout in the future given how easy it is to acquire, and think that the armor plate system and gulag are in need of revision. But my time spent in Verdask was still supremely fun even if the how and the why of it didn’t matter all that much.