Almost a year has passed since Hi-Rez Studios, creators of SMITE and Paladins, among other eminently online games, announced Rogue Company, their new online shooter. It was on a Nintendo Direct and coincidentally a few days ago, on the occasion of the Mini Partner Showcase, he returned to the ring to reveal his departure.

It is early access for founders who decide to pay to play before its stable launch, yet to be determined. An Early Access to warm up and see what this new shooter is capable of and if it has something to do against heavyweights like Counter-Strike or the recent Valorant.

When you don’t come to break molds, and you don’t care

If the Riot above Games shooter was inspired by the formula of the Valve classic to implement unique abilities and that it turned out to be something fresh, with Rogue Company, we are facing a third-person shooter that inherits that formula without giving it anything novel. It is something that, unfortunately, Hi-Rez Studios has been doing for a few years, afraid to take risks.

We are facing a straightforward game, partly because it has two classic game modes (for now) at the outset: Demolition, in which attackers have to detonate a bomb and defenders prevent it; and Assault, a team deathmatch with a limit of tickets. And they have fun, yes, but they are trite.

Each round starts from an airplane, with a few seconds to buy or improve our equipment, and soon after letting go and deciding, with little room for maneuver ( the maps are tiny, after all, they are 4-on-4 games ), where we want to land to face the hot spot as we please.

They are short and intense rounds, being a shooter where the life bar drops very fast, so there is little room for strategy. Here the idea is to be in rapport with the comrades if we do not want to suffer asking for revival since when we are dejected, we have a very few seconds to ask for help … unless they finish us off and confirm the death. In this sense, there is an agent whose ability is to revive himself from the ground, which can be a surprise effect before the enemies that pass from us after leaving us dejected.

Without a doubt, skills are the most significant attraction, offering perfect variety among agents. Besides, the vast majority have a long reactivation time, so you have to think carefully when to use them. While there are then other passive abilities that make each character, along with their weaponry and other passive perks (dropping pasta in each round), differ from each other noticeably, which is welcome.

As much as the Rogue Company gets to amuse

Those differences are palpable even with the basic pistol, which we can upgrade from the plane twice for $ 2,000 each time. There are characters whose pistol (infinite ammo) has a very slow cadence, while with others, it seems almost an uzi. And let us not even say facing the primary weapons, where there is no shortage of assault rifles, shotguns or sniper rifles, of $ 8,000.

It is easy to get hold of the Rogue Company commands, where there is not even a button missing on the crosshead to give orders, but it does not mean that jump climbing is not very used. You can climb through specific structures, although not to the point of sneaking into rooftops and areas of great tactical advantage.

The covers are also simple, without covering up: primarily, bent over, and discovered a few centimeters when aiming. It can be played very well and is fun, however generic it may seem. Now, it takes a few days with too much maintenance on your servers. Although it is still early access and we already know that this carries its risks. Corpses often show glitches where they jerk.

There are details to improve, of course, but there are also missing options to be enabled for its final version, such as mastery rewards or knowing the agent’s biography. Even access to aesthetic accessories. At least there are challenges, even though we cannot do anything with the coins. And that is not bad in the number of maps (seven) or agents (13).

It has been a few hours of play where it has become clear how green it is, but I have come to enjoy some games of the Rogue Company more than those of the recent Valorant. Mainly, the ones of the Assault mode and the pique to see how the tickets of my companions were falling without being killed until I fell and could not reappear … Because in this mode, it also has a significant influence to ensure the control point so that they leave consuming the enemy’s tickets.

The brawls there is more fun, in my opinion, than in Demolition, at a slower pace, partly because they are more direct rounds, without tickets to regenerate. We will have to see how it evolves, in any case, because Extraction would be missing, the third mode presented, and more elements that are yet to come. The good thing is that at least it comes standard with cross-play between all consoles and PCs.