Spectre Divide is good enough to stick around where others have failed | Hands-on impressions
I fully expected Spectre Divide to be another shooter that didn’t do much else that giants like Overwatch already do. There have been so many games within this genre that have fallen by the wayside, leaving little more than a fuzzy memory in their wake. I don’t know whether I’ll play more given how many games are hitting these days, but there is a big audience out there craving more variety in their multiplayer shooters that are going to get a lot out of this thanks to the one shining mechanic that makes it stand out from all of the rest.
Duality allows you to control two bodies during a match. Two characters belonging to the same player that can be alternated between during matches. Not only is it a good idea, it is the way the tactical range of your character can be doubled, tripled, and quadrupled constantly. You have a puck that can be picked up and thrown whenever you want, and with the press of a button you can switch to wherever you through the puck to take on the form of your dual character.
This means you can throw the puck through gates, onto higher platforms, behind obstacles, and more. When you’re taking heavy fire from your opponents, switching to your other avatar means wherever the puck is, you’re instantly teleported there. When you die, you take on the form of your other body and get one more chance to survive and kill the enemy. The maps have a variety of choke points and cover, along with higher ground and open spaces for a range of opportunities to succeed.
Whenever the opponent gets near your puck, you get an alert to let you know, allowing you to quickly switch to it and try and take them out. Working with your teammates and making quick decisions on the fly offer so much variety in how matches play out that without even diving into the loadouts and how they work, you’ll find plenty to love when bullet-deep in combat. When you start to take on Sponsors and buy weapons at the start of each round, Spectre Divide adds more layers to its intricate yet simplified approach to matches.
Sponsors act as your character’s class, whereby you’ll earn new gear that can change you from assault-based to a healer, for example. At the start of each round, depending on how successful you were in the last, you’ll gain money to buy different tiers of weapons. Each tier gets better as you go, providing one weapon for you and one for your spectre. On top of the tactics already in place, choosing your weapons to compliment your team adds further strategy to how you tackle each game.
What makes Spectre Divide that much better is how quickly you get familiar with its controls. It feels easy to play with smooth movement and accurate shooting. Some shooters can feel unfamiliar because they’re trying to be different, but this knows what it wants to be and allows you to essentially pick up and play. With its Duality mechanic, it makes sure that is the thing you need to learn while letting the natural shooting and movement of it feel as responsive and smooth as other titles within the genre.
It will be exciting to see what the final game looks like, but currently, Spectre Divide is a lot of fun. Duality adds a whole new layer of tactics to matches and makes it stand out in a crowd of very similar shooters. Many come and go, but it feels like this could actually be one that lingers depending on the support given after it launches. Playing it is a lot of fun, the stress and excitement of trying to defuse and find the bomb or defend it is great, and the cel-shading visuals make it well worth trying out.
Spectre Divide is coming to PC via Steam on September 3rd.
