More Xbox news at gamesradar.com/oxm THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE 043face of it Disintegration looks like a
typical FPS, it is anything but.
Sitting in the lobby for our first
multiplayer match, we get to select
our crew, with each one looking and
playing differently to the next. Each
grav cycle has a different weapon
loadout and group of foot soldiers
who have their own special abilities.
The game mode we play is called
Retrieval. This has one team of five
players collecting power cores or
packages from one of two locations,
and delivering them to the launch pad
at their base, while another team of
five aims to stop them. Essentially, it’s
a version of Capture the Flag.
As the player you get to pilot a grav
cycle, the controls of which are fairly
straightforward. The left bumper and
trigger increases and lowers your
altitude respectively. As standard, the
right trigger fires your weapon, while
a quick press of the right bumper
lets you ping locations on the map
which your crew will immediately
move to. Each member on the ground
has a specific ability that changes
depending on the crew you chooseat the beginning of the match and is
assigned to the D-pad. Your crew can
move to any location on the map but
they can’t be left to their own devices- move too far away and they’ll come
running back to regroup on you,
ensuring they’re always close by to
pop off one of their abilities when
they’re ready.
Despite being told to do otherwise,
when our first match starts we
can’t help but fall back into how we
normally play first-person shooters,
and immediately struggle, prodding
the controller like a confused child. It’s
not that it’s convoluted, the controls
are easy to grasp, there’s just more
happening on-screen than we’re used
to, and there’s a lot more thinking
involved. This is helped by the pace of
gameplay, which is somewhat slower
than you’d find in an FPS. “We like to
call it in the studio a ‘thinking person’s
first-person shooter’, or an ‘aerial
tactical shooter’,” explains Lehto.
“We slowed things down to allow the
player to take their time and tactically
use those units and play the game
more strategically, for people to think
“We like to call it in the
studio a ‘thinking person’s
first-person shooter’”
ABOVE The DNA of
the likes of
Destiny and Halo
can be seen in
Disintegration’s
visual design.