Disintegration Closed Beta Impressions

I had the opportunity to check out Disintegration’s closed multiplayer technical beta, and I wanted to share a few of my initial thoughts on the game.

V1 Interactive, led by Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto, takes an interesting spin on a 5v5 FPS game by putting you in the pilot’s seat of a heavily armed Gravcycle. Wait – what’s a Gravcycle? We will get to that in a bit.

Not much of the back story is known yet, but it appears from the maps that this game is set in a post-apocalyptic era or during the end of a great world war in the not-to-distant future. The closed beta gives players two multiplayer options: Control (Standard ABC) or Launch/Protect your warheads, which is effectively secure and protect the payload.

The Beta starts you off in a training simulator, which is essentially a tutorial on all the different tools you can use in game via your Gravcycle. This vehicle shares a similar feel to piloting a Banshee from Halo.

At its core, Disintegration is an FPS with strong focus on the vehicles, but this is where Lehto and team start to get creative with the mechanics. Each crew has a Gravcycle driver and 2-4 minions, each with their own unique abilities.

During the early parts of the first day of the beta, I rarely saw anyone use the minions or their abilities very effectively – everybody just wanted to 1v1 with the Gravcycles. Leaving minions sidelined in battle proved to be a mistake, however, as their abilities are very powerful and can easily turn battles in your favor. One of the minions, Tech Noir, showcases some of my favorite abilities, with both a slow field and a disruption field.

So how does the game feel? Before I understood the minions and how powerful their abilities were, I would say it felt a bit slow, but once I grew to understand the tactical approach in using my crew’s full potential, I began to enjoy the pace of the game much more.

Currently, I think V1 Interactive has the potential of a gem on their hands. What will be important now is listening to the feedback from community vets. A few improvements I would hope they consider include a kill feed, a respawn timer for both teams, a team launch timer that allows you to see the makeup of your team, and radial general chat dialog during the game. It’s still early on for the closed beta, but I think this game has a real chance to take off, especially if it’s able to gain a bit more traction.