Forward of its twenty third August launch, we lastly acquired our fingers on Harmony, the reside service hero shooter from Firewalk Studios. Sony’s huge multiplayer gamble was not met with the perfect of first impressions when it debuted at State of Play, however now that we’ve had a while with the sport, is that this shaping as much as be the following reside service hit?
Confidence is the secret right here, and regardless of the general public’s supposed perspective in the direction of hero shooters, Harmony swaggers up with all of the graphical and musical bombast you’d anticipate from a Sony first-party expertise. We’re a sucker for some good UI and menu design, and Harmony has all of that in spade, and there’s a sure “huge deal” vitality about all of it that we discovered infectious.
The beta consists of entry to a few modes, 4 maps, all 16 characters, and a collection of unlockable cosmetics – none of which won’t carry over to the complete launch. What we’ve got right here is actually Group Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, and a rounds-based Seize the Level mode. It’s nothing you haven’t performed earlier than, so the place Harmony tries to distinguish is in its characters and gameplay.
The primary-person taking pictures is extremely tight, and in locations paying homage to Future 2’s floaty gameplay – which is not any shock contemplating the ex-Bungie expertise aboard at Firewalk. Throughout all 16 characters you’ve your typical archetypes of tanks, healers, aggressors, and assist, however the place Harmony succeeds is within the gameplay loops you’ll discover inside every character.
Teo is all about utilizing smoke bombs to cut back visibility after which utilizing his scope to identify enemies and ending them off together with his cluster bomb. 1-Off sends his barrelling trash bombs to disrupt enemies, utilizing his vacuum to guard the squad. Jabali is a frontline healer who can tick away at enemy well being together with his seeker rifle, heal the staff together with his therapeutic aura, and deal respectable injury together with his hunter orbs.
The checklist goes on, however like all good hero shooter, the enjoyable lies in taking part in your position and supporting your staff – one thing that was surprisingly current throughout our randomly matched periods over the weekend. After all there will likely be favourites, just like the high-damage Haymar or the self-healing Lennox, however it was good to see such assorted alternatives throughout matches, with no apparent frontrunners. Firewalk has seemingly produced a balanced roster of heroes that each one have one thing to supply.
Essentially the most shocking side of Harmony, nonetheless, is the way it manages to strike a stability between a hero shooter with a very long time to kill and rotating targets and a area shooter like XDefiant, the place you might be nonetheless in a position to wrack up spectacular kill streaks.
It’s in that elementary change that we predict Harmony might thrive, as a result of it’s a defining gameplay loop we simply couldn’t get sufficient of. Talents recharge fairly shortly and will be replenished after kills, so there’s a way more dynamic really feel to the battlefield. We’re extremely responsible of holding on to our talents for the “proper second” in hero shooters, however right here each second is the appropriate second – and even when it isn’t, you received’t be penalised an excessive amount of for it.
Well being too is a giant consider all of this. Your well being won’t naturally regenerate, so as a substitute you’ll have to go to one of many few well being pick-up factors, or depend on a therapeutic teammate. It’s not one thing we had been too eager on to begin, however finally it influences the way you play, and provides one other string of pressure to Harmony’s bow.
It’s a incredible begin to a sport we right here at Push Sq. are extremely excited for, however after our time with the beta, there are nonetheless quite a lot of issues we’re not sure of. For one, in case you performed the beta you’ll have completed quite a lot of levelling up, however it’s not notably clear what it’s that you simply’re levelling up for. Day by day, weekly, and seasonal challenges dole out XP, which will increase your profile stage, however finishing matches will increase your particular character stage, too. Cosmetics appear to be the main target, but when what we’ve got right here is an indication of what’s to return, it’s decidedly sparse. Fortunately there will even be Freegunner challenges, which may unlock character variants with differing passive talents, which we think about will likely be a pleasant motive to remain on for “yet another sport”.
Then there are the weekly vignettes. What we’ve witnessed thus far are some top quality cutscenes that maybe lack any defining traits. They’re simply form of there in the intervening time, however we’d hardly anticipate to fall in love with these characters from day dot. We’re immensely to see how sustainable and the way efficient this strategy to storytelling is, as a result of from the little titbits we’ve had thus far, Firewalk’s clearly making an attempt to construct an expansive lore.
Honestly although, our greatest problem with Harmony is that its present modes do not final lengthy sufficient to actually get into the motion. Each the TDM and Kill Confirmed modes solely ask for 30 factors on every staff, and are sometimes wrapped up inside 5 minutes. Clearly we do not at present have entry to the complete roster of modes, however we might hope one thing extra substantial is on the market upon launch. Because it stands, its matches are too bitty, the place simply as issues are actually heating up, they’re over.
Harmony is a delightfully vibrant and strong shooter that virtually feels able to go. Throughout the beta weekend there have been no server crashes, laggy matches, glitches, or actually something of that ilk. It’s a cultured expertise that feels prepared to affix the Sony patheon, and one we predict gamers ought to give an opportunity. Is it essentially the most unique tackle the hero shooter style? No, however its a cultured and premium product that already has a strong basis to develop upon. There are some questions we’ve got that we suspect received’t be answered till the complete launch, and we might adore it to let unfastened a bit of extra, however because it stands Harmony simply shot its approach as much as the highest of our most anticipated.
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