Marauders | PC Review
Marauders, developed by Small Impact Games and published by Team17, is a first-person tactical looter-shooter. It is currently in early access and the developers intend it remaining in that phase for about a year to a year and a half, so there is a lot still to come as the game develops!
Marauders is a tactical FPS game that's fully multiplayer. It is set in an alternate universe where The Great War started and never ended, and Earth has been industrialised to a dangerous point and many have fled to space. Some who have fled have become mercenaries known as marauders. You play the role of a marauder, and you must gear up, pilot your ship, and explore the galaxy to salvage anything that may be useful to your survival. In each match, players will fly themselves to an area where they need to loot up, collect resources and fend off other players that are trying to do the same thing. If you die, you lose all your gear that you went out there with, and you also lose anything that you pick up along the way.
It’s important to remember that this game is still in early access, for at least 12 months still, so any criticisms and such of this game are purely of what I played and experienced and there is still a lot of scope for improvements and changes as the game develops. For a game of this genre so early in its life and development, Marauders is pretty well-made. The gunplay feels excellent, and the gunfights all felt really well-balanced and fun. That's not to say that I’ve hopped onto the game and immediately been a pro, the truth is, I SUCK. I think I’ve only killed about three people in all my attempts at matches. I haven’t played Escape from Tarkov personally, but I’ve watched plenty of it, and I do feel like this has the potential to become Space From Tarkov - which isn’t a bad thing. I believe that might not be to everyone's tastes, but perhaps the gameplay appeals to them, so to have alternatives of a similar nature such as Marauders is great.
As well as the man-to-man combat, there is also the potential for dogfight-esque combat as well. Your ship has a turret on it and as you're travelling to your destination you may also see other players travelling to their next raid location, and you can choose to engage already to take them out before they can even hit their location. The aerial battles were definitely not something I enjoyed, and I do feel like the movement could do with a little bit of refinement. I also died quite a few times to people just camping the loading docks of areas, and that got really frustrating for me. I was simply an easy target because I was either arriving well-equipped for battle, or I was attempting to leave with my new and shiny loot, and I was being eliminated by people who were just waiting for me, so they could enjoy the fruits of my labour.
Part of me wants to say that perhaps Marauders is a little bit TOO difficult, but a big part of me truly believes this is a skill issue. As well as the risk of other players, you also have a time constraint on each mission because your oxygen will run out. You’ll also have limited backpack space, so you’ll need to choose what you take with you and be very selective and take only the most useful stuff. I found it hard to identify what would really be useful to me in all my missions.
I see a really bright future for Marauders and can’t wait for more people to play it and become engrossed in it, and hopefully be able to squad up with friends in the future. For a game so early in its life cycle it’s fairly well polished and creates an incredibly suspenseful atmosphere but also has satisfying gunplay. Fans of Escape from Tarkov will almost feel incredibly familiar to you, and those fans will likely excel in Marauders. I’ll be eagerly awaiting the next batch of updates for because it can only really get better from here, as the foundations laid already are by and large a positive experience for me.
Lj’s Rating: 4 out of 5.
For more information on Marauders please use the following links...
Small Impact Games - Developer | Facebook | Twitter | Website
Team17 - Publisher | Facebook | Twitter | Website
Many thanks to Team17 and PressEngine for the Review Key.
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