Ghost In The Shell: First Assault Trailer Uncloaks
Alice wants to believe
If you want fun cyberpunk multiplayer tactical FPS action now, I'll point you towards the free Source mods Dystopia and Neotokyo. If you want to cling to the hope that someone will one day make a good Ghost in the Shell game and maybe, just maybe, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – First Assault Online [official site] could be that game, mate, I'm right there with you. Self-delusion can be fun when it lets you look at videos of cool cyborgs, like this here new trailer:
Hmm. It's not the finest trailer, but what lies underneath all the editing and music and whatnot? First Assault (as Nexon call it for short) is a class-based tactical FPS, where you might play as the Major and scamper about under thermoptic camouflage or scout out with Saito's enhanced vision and enemy-tagging. Characters and weapons can be customised - this is the cyberfuture, after all - and I am intrigued by a feature Nexon call 'SkillSync'. This "allows players to leverage shared cyber-abilities with nearby teammates in combat modes to augment and increase their skills," they say. "By using SkillSync in smart and tactical ways, teammates can work together in devastating combinations in battle." That sounds... intriguing?
Nexon don't have the best reputation as a free-to-play publisher, putting out a lot of unremarkable games over the years. However, they have seemed to starting picking up a few more quality games, between Splash Damage's Dirty Bomb and former Epic chap Cliff Bleszinski's LawBreakers. Maybe First Assault will be another interesting one, even if developers Neople don't have any exciting to their name (they're behind games like Dungeon Fighter Online and Cyphers). This is me trying self-delusion again, isn't it? I want to believe.
First Assault is due to launch free-to-play in 2016. Closed beta testing will kick off on October 1st, for which you can sign up on its site.