Indie Focus: Loadout

As the name implies, the key focus of this game is your loadout. It’s a third person shooter with a cartoon aesthetic that allows you to build your own guns out of a selection of parts. It’s free to play, as well, with a business model that only has people buying cosmetic items (i.e. the good kind of F2P) so nobody can show up, buy a load of guns, and then immediately dominate. There’s no buying power here, but there’s plenty of power for the people who play it.

The game mixes a similar aesthetic to Team Fortress 2 with over the top gore to hilarious effect, you can strip the flesh from enemy’s limbs so they are just bone, blow holes in their torso that you can see right through, not to mention seeing their insides. It actually sounds a little traumatic but the bright colours and over the top nature of the game really just result in laughter, particularly when the enemy you just literally blew in half gives you the finger.

If hectic chaos is what you look for in a shooter then Loadout has you covered. Players are constantly rolling and jumping all over the map trying to avoid the wide variety of different projectiles that are likely coming their way at any given time. Modes such as Blitz have you capturing control points and encourage team play, as do game mechanics like guns that can heal people up to 200% health.

Jackhammer, which is capture the flag with a hammer instead of a flag, lets you use the hammer itself to get one hit kills if your aim and timing are up to it, netting you more points once you capture it. The closest to a standard shooter mode is Death Snatch, which is a kill confirmed mode where you get points when picking up the Blutonium that enemies drop on death.

It’s important to stay mobile and really get to grips with the movement system. More than just avoiding incoming fire, jumping and rolling can be used to access parts of the map that are usually inaccessible in other games, as you can jump very high, and if you jump immediately after rolling you will jump even higher. Finding better vantage points and quicker routes becomes experimentation and it lets you surprise enemies by jumping out from places you wouldn’t normally be able to in other games.

Obviously, the focus of Loadout is on the weaponry . There are a variety of guns types to choose from, such as rifles, beam weapons, and launchers, after which you can customise how they work completely. Do you want your rockets to explode on impact, or at the press of a button? A shotgun that shoots bouncing balls of electricity? That’s great indoors if you can avoid killing yourself. Fully automatic, burst fire, or semi auto? One powerful rocket, or three less powerful rockets? Do you want your rockets to spiral in the air to maximise chance to hit? You can even make healing guns to heal yourself and your teammates for a little bit of medic work. There are plenty of options for you find that gun you’ve been missing all your life.

Guns parts are all unlocked using only in-game money that you earn from matches, so you can’t just buy your way to more powerful weaponry, although you can buy multipliers to earn XP and Blutonium (the in-game currency) from matches more quickly.

There isn’t really a more powerful weapon anyway, as the advantages come with disadvantages, so you are really just making guns to match your play style. Or more likely you’ll discover that you can make something amazing and change your style around it because you like it so much. I don’t usually use shotguns in games, but my tesla with bouncing projectiles is a lot of fun, particularly in more enclosed environments.

The game is funded by buying cosmetic items to customise your character. There are plenty of outfits and items for players to wear if you fancy supporting the game. The problem is that the cosmetic items are a bit expensive, but since they are entirely optional and don’t affect the gameplay, you don’t need to buy them unless you want to support the game and/or really like customising characters. There are daily sales on items and in future you may be able to get cosmetic items through gameplay, but for the moment they do seem to be a bit expensive.

Loadout is a hilarious, over the top blood bath with chaotic combat and more varied weapons than any other game I’ve seen. Tinkering around with guns to this extent isn’t something that’s found in too many other games and it opens a whole world of possibilities that you can’t find anywhere else. Plus it’s free to play with the best payment model possible for a competitive game so there isn’t much reason not to try it. Edge of Reality have made something great that deserves some attention, if only to ensure there are more people for me to shotgun into oblivion.