Beyond the Wire | PC Review
Beyond the Wire, developed by Redstone Interactive and published by Offworld Industries, is an immersive war simulation and strategy game. It is currently exclusively available on Windows PC.
Beyond the Wire is a large-scale, first-person shooter that immerses the player in the grim and muddy trenches of the First World War. Each game sees an epic battle take place with up to fifty people per team. Each team is then split up into smaller squads with set roles throughout, so you must work together to progress through the map, take over checkpoints and survive the brutal action on the front lines. There are ten different factions, and each has their own unique equipment and vehicles such as riflemen, medics and grenadiers, that are all available and welcome to be used to adapt to your style of play.
Visually, Beyond the Wire looks pretty, the maps seem excellent, and the terrain feels good. The maps themselves are expansive and provide many different areas with their own unique nuances that will alter the flow of battle. The game's requirements are substantial, and although my PC far exceeded those requirements, I still found that the visuals on the opening scenes were very laggy, almost as if it was poorly optimised, because of these small micro stutters that I experienced. The audio is generally great, and the gun sounds are crisp and clean, and even using a bolt action sniper rifle provides a satisfying sound that I can only imagine is at least semi realistic.
Beyond the Wire began off in early access in October 2020 and moved onto its full release at the end of August 2022. Unfortunately, by the time this game landed itself in my library, it seemed the game had already died a very brutal and premature death. Whilst the game boasts massive 50v50 battles, I unfortunately couldn’t experience the action. I tried on eight different occasions to get an active lobby, I tried during a variety of times on different days and every server was completely empty, meaning I just had an empty map to wander around on. As there are no single player modes or even bots to activate, this leaves you with the training section which isn’t exactly engaging, nor does it really “train” you - what even are we training for if we can’t play the game? Whilst I understand that the player base, or lack thereof, isn’t the developer’s fault as such, it does call into question - what could they do to help this issue? Some ideas I’ve had include implementing a few free weekends of the game so that people can try it and perhaps become invested, maybe set a time via a Discord server, and have people log in and play together. Or even involve a few content creators and request it be streamed at certain periods. They could also implement bots into the game to supplement the humans, or lack of.
I do believe there’s a good game in there with Beyond the Wire, but I feel the game has been let down by its non-existent player base. If these problems were mitigated, however, then war simulation fans would be glad to include this in their library. Unfortunately, though, at present there would be very little incentive for anyone to buy it.
Lj’s Rating: 2 out of 5.
For more information on Beyond the Wire please use the following links...
Redstone Interactive - Developer | Facebook | Twitter | Website
Offworld Industries - Publisher | Facebook | Twitter | Website
Many thanks to Terminals.io for the Review Key.
Beyond the Wire | Windows PC
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