As a general rule, any first-person game where you’re walking around derelict areas and pointing a camera at things is probably going to be super creepy, and upcoming asymmetrical shooter Project Spectrum certainly seems like it will reinforce this tried-and-true guideline. The brief eight-minute hands-off demo of this suspenseful shooter left me with as many questions as I got answers, with lots left unexplained about how exactly this weird idea will work, but it also showed signs of a fairly new take on the asymmetrical multiplayer genre that’s become one of my favorite pastimes in recent years. Taking a page out of fellow supernaturally inclined monster slaying game Hunt: Showdown 1896, you and your friends explore the map and take down dangerous creatures as you hunt the boss in each area for a final confrontation – in this case, using your camera to track the source of the reality-warping ghostly corruption that plagues the world. But instead of competing against rival crews, you’re being hunted yourself by player-controlled, bizarre looking monstrosities with frightening abilities, adding a bit of Evolve-like flavor to the mix.
From the few bits of story I was able to glean, Project Spectrum has you playing as special paranormal hunters entering areas affected by a supernatural entity called Ember Zones where you’ll track down the source of the corruption and kill them dead. Mixing horror elements, like zombies rushing at you and spooky investigation sequences where you’re looking over your shoulder while snapping a photo of some strange anomaly, with more traditional FPS gameplay where you’re shooting humans in a rundown mansion and crafting improvised trip mines to keep would-be interlopers at bay, will hopefully make for a nice pairing of action-packed combat and tense creepy sections that could be a match made in heaven, even if I didn’t get the impression that story was a major focus (though it’s hard to tell from such a short demo).
There was also a pretty clever crafting system where you could do things like scavenge a soda pop can from the ground and convert it into a silencer for your pistol with a bit of good ol’ survival game ingenuity. I still have a lot of questions about how crafting works, since at one point they crafted a trip mine using a grenade and wire that they got seemingly out of nowhere, but it was still a nice touch.
The most interesting part of the demo, though, came when a powerful multi-armed creature suddenly popped out of nowhere and started hunting the players, and it was revealed to be controlled by another human. As a freaky-looking ball of smoke with dangerously flailing limbs, this player hopped on top of the mansion the human players were exploring and hunted them down one-by-one, leaping from place to place when they were separated from one another to pick them off. I wasn’t able to get a sense of what the creature’s abilities might be, or what it might feel like to play as them, but seeing it crawl on top of buildings, stalking unaware players down below definitely sounds like my idea of a good time.
There are some pretty big things I’m still not entirely clear on, like what the meta progression looks like, for example. The developer didn’t say if Project Spectrum will have a traditional story-driven campaign, or will be limited to one-off matches on a preset map where you’re making progress in some other way. Since it’s a free-to-play game with a multiplayer focus that has a lot in common with Hunt: Showdown, my guess is it’ll be the latter, but with a lot of focus on worldbuilding, it’s a bit hard to say for sure.
And although there were some neat ideas, like the crafting system and the ability to play as a creepy monster hunting players, there’s a bit too many unanswered questions for me to get excited just yet. For example, the gunplay looked a bit basic, with generic pistols and assault rifles that seemed a tad boring in a game about hunting ghosts, and melee gameplay looked a bit sloppy as well. Also, there was one part where a character revived another player, and the animation for doing so was grabbing a whole med kit and rotating it around their own arm like they were applying gauze, which broke my brain for a minute. It seems pretty likely to me that this is a very early look at a game that is likely to change quite a bit before we’re able to understand how it’s taking shape.
I’ll need to see more (and hopefully get my hands on it) before I get my hopes up, but a new IP with some interesting new ideas and the chance to scare the pants off my friends as an interdimensional monster certainly is welcome news. Here’s hoping we get the chance to take a closer look at Project Spectrum in the coming months.
