Synced: Off-Planet is Tencent's new horde hoarding shooter

Synced: Off-Planet is the rather descriptive title of Tencent's new competitive shooter. You'll cower behind cover taking potshots at other players, but you'll also fight to control the destination of hordes of AI and bosses. It’s like being those schoolteachers you see in the streets, wearing high-vis jackets and fearfully trying to direct their pupils through traffic. There's some super shiny RTX footage hither.

I’m glad it has the sync mechanic because the shooting looks kind of generic. Guns, cover, shooting other players. I have no more words to describe those types of games. I need something else, and Next Studios has you controlling vast swarms of zombie-looking things called Nanos. They are corrupted cyborgs, which is what gives you the ability to control them. When you’re all synced up to their robobrains, you can send them into battle ahead of you. There’s something very amusing about a man sneakily cowering behind a wall while redirecting a swarm into a fight. It doesn’t look like you can do more than suggest a direction, but it doesn’t really matter. They know how to zombie.

There are also special types of creature that can be redirected. A Rager is stopped mid-rage and taken over by the player before being redeployed elsewhere. Multiplayer means the same can happen to you or your friends as you all fight to be extracted. I can see the potential: it’s always fun coming up with chaotic solutions to mundane issues of headshots, and a hands-off Left 4 Dead could work well.

No release date yet, but it won’t be in the past now will it?