Founded in 2012, Proletariat boasts that their games are of “unheard of quality for a small studio” and as far as Spellbreak goes I won’t argue with them. The first time I got my hands on it, I had to immediately look up the studio responsible for this. I couldn’t believe that somehow a publisher that I hadn't ever heard of was able to put out a game that could easily wear the AAA badge and compete (maybe even thrive) in the crowded BR landscape. They had put out a couple of games before this, one being a mobile mmo title named World Zombination and the other a fast paced fortnite-esque arena style game with heavy emphasis on streaming called Streamline. Yeah they probably could have workshopped that name a bit more. Ultimately, neither of these took the world by storm but they gave the team a solid base to build their latest and greatest. Here we are then, in September of the cursed year 2020 and we’ve been given at least one pleasant surprise as a palette cleanser moving toward 2021.
Seems like everywhere you turn there’s a new Battle Royale coming out and because I usually run on CP time there hasn't been too many of them that I’ve played on release. I tried Hyper Scape and wasn’t impressed, I’ll NEVER touch Fortnite, PubG is too janky, and Warzone is too slow and unimaginative. Even Apex Legends, my favorite battle royale game, a game that plays with the formula a bit by adding hero shooter elements, is a straightforward run and gun requiring precise aim more so than on the fly thought process adjustments. A few years back though, I saw a clip of a game where instead of submachine guns and snipers, you and your team were armed with elemental magic. You could yeet boulders across the map, you could burn groups of ops with your firewall, you could even summon lightning from the sky like Chris Hemsworth. I thought to myself, this can change this genre for the better. It injects a dose of much needed FUN to the formula that can get lost in the more hardcore, twitch reflex driven world of BRs and modern day shooters. Then Realm Royale came out and I couldn’t figure out why a game that looked so cool when I first saw it, looked and played like hot doo doo butter.
Turns out, it wasn’t the same game. Similar concept but Realm leaned more toward casual kid-friendly fun than anything. That was cool and I’m sure there’s an audience for that but Spellbreak is much different, and better for that matter but that's subjective. Proletariat’s Spellbreak had quietly entered Alpha at the time and was operating under the radar. That is until last week when they deactivated their invisibility rune and exposed themselves to the gaming world. I said what I said. I’ve been playing since launch day and I seriously haven't been able to put this thing down since. In fact, I didn’t want to put it down to write this video, but I wanted to make sure I let the world know that Spellbreak is here and it’s awesome. Here’s how Eye See It.
Now when I say Spellbreak is here I mean Spellbreak is everywhere. The game is available on all of the major platforms barring the Ouya. Remember that? You guys remember that thing? (I member) When I say all that means PC, Playstation, Xbox, and even the Nintendo Switch. The game is completely cross platform and cross progression which means you can link your accounts and play just about anywhere. As far as the gameplay for this game goes...
Have you watched Avatar and found yourself thinking about what powers you’d have if you lived in their universe? If you said no, yous a damn lie! We’ve all pretended to waterbend in the shower. We’ve all thrown rocks at our friends. Thats right, we’ve all played with lighters and made whoosh noises and hit dumb poses. I mean, we definitely, every single one of us claimed to be an airbender before ripping a huge fart. No? None of those things? Just me? I swear yall be capping, yall really do… At the very least you guys have thought about it and that makes Spellbreak at least worth one shot, even if you aren’t into the battle royale genre normally. You enter the arena in teams of 3, though solos has already been released with duos on the way soon after, each armed with an elemental gauntlet on your right hand to aid you in combat. The available elements as of launch are Fire, Ice, Wind, Lightning, Stone, and Poison. I know, I know not all of these are exactly elements. Don't be that guy…
Once you land, in normal BR fashion you gather loot, including runes that have some cool magical effects, until you see opponents, at which point you use primary and secondary attacks to annihilate them as fast as possible and with extreme prejudice until you and yours are the last ones standing. However, this simple concept is augmented here. Once you start fighting the game is incredibly fast paced, and with the ability to pick up a second gauntlet in your left hand and for your teammates to coordinate their gauntlet choices with yours, Spellbreak allows for some of the craziest combinations and elemental reactions that I’ve ever seen in a video game. A tornado can quickly turn into a fire-tornado and then just as quickly explode upwards when hit with toxic gas. A rock hurled across the map can be transformed into a meteor if you hit it with fire while it floats towards the opposition. An icetrail that your opponent is using to escape can be melted away, stopping them in their tracks and forcing them to face their fate. Spellbreak takes a concept that I still say was the best part of the ill advised Anthem’s gameplay loop, and perfectly applies it to a multiplayer battle arena.
If the idea of magic in a BR makes you nervous, don’t worry. At the end of the day this is still a third person shooter and each class has its equivalents in other games. Stone is similar to a shotgun. You have high damage output but limited range and mobility. Fire is a grenade launcher that rewards you for direct hits but also can do splash damage. If you can hit the ground with this as your opponent hits the ground you can still do a good amount of damage. Ice is your sniper class, equipped with a bow and arrow and able to do high damage from long range if you can hit your shots. Lightning is a sort of laser or rail gun, very much reminding me of Zarya’s weapon in Overwatch. You can press and hold your primary fire and it lets loose in a straight line at a distance. Wind is the closest thing to an automatic weapon that you have, heavily reminding me of a smg in the right hands. The final Toxic is the one that I find the hardest to come up with an equivalent for. It has a horizontal spread that reminds me of Apex’s triple take sniper but the arc in which it shoots is totally different. Though not hard to use, If there’s one that will take a moment to wrap your head around, its this one.
As the game continues and you move from ring to ring, your starting element will level up giving you access to new class specific powers. For example, the first level you gain in the sniper class allows for you to float in midair to aim your shot. It also highlights enemies in red so that you can identify them easier while they jump around. Each class has 4 levels that will increase as you survive longer and longer. This ensures that, even if you don’t have the best loot by the final ring, you’re a powerhouse in your own way and can hold your own.
To further individuality in playstyle, there’s a pool of talents that can be applied to each class, though they have to be unlocked through gameplay. These talents give interesting stat bonuses such as an increased chance to find scrolls, decreased mana cost, increased damage, and damage reduction. Some of these talents work in conjunction with the class specific powers to allow for some really creative and uber powerful builds which I’ll be detailing in future videos.
Like most free to play titles , there is also a shop. Complete with its own currency sold in different increments and items priced so that you inexplicably won’t use all of the gold that you buy. You know, normal free to play economy stuff. Where Spellbreak bucks the trend, is when it comes to allowing you to earn that currency through gameplay. There is no traditional battle pass yet but, along with the ability to level up your overall account and earn rewards, each class has its own mini battle pass of sorts. Kind of like what Marvel’s Avengers did with their character pass but way less shitty and predatory. Here there are 20 levels for each weapon that award different prizes ranging from Titles to Cloudburst to actual currency that can be spent in the in game shop. I use the term actual because there is currently only one form of currency. Most games offer you a useless currency in game and then encourages you to purchase a different, more valuable form of currency from their shop. Good guy Proletariat is different.. For now at least.
I really like this game, though I do have my criticisms. My first is the dive mechanic at the beginning of the game. You feel so stilted and unable to change course. If you find that you’re at all split from your group on the descent, chances are you won't be able to course correct and you’ll end up far away from them. I know that I’ve brought up Apex Legends a lot but their jumpmaster system helps immensely with this. It links all teammates together upon initial descent and then each player can choose to let go individually. This also helps scouting in the air, as teammates can look around and let you know how many teams are landing near you.
Another thing that Apex innovated that I want to see in this game is the res system. Just about every other BR has jacked this idea and implemented it in their own way. It encourages teammates who die to stick around and observe players of higher skill as they plan out a rescue operation. Otherwise, there's little to no incentive in sticking around after you are exiled, barring waiting for your team so you can all go into the next game together. A res system would help retain some of the more casual players who feel as though the one and done playstyle of a BR punishes them and pushes them away.
A third criticism that I have is the inability to armor swap. In this game if I have a belt )which is your armor in this game) and that belt gets depleted, I can’t drop it and replace it with a fresh one if I find it. Because of this I have to go into a lot of fights at a handicap that I didn’t have to if I could just put on a new belt. I’d also like to be able to take a fresh belt off of someone’s body after they are dead. Right now when you exile an enemy they explode into a bunch of loot, but really the only useful thing you get most times is a single scroll. To me, this makes getting a kill a bit less satisfying than in other BR titles that allow for this.
I’ve also found that it can be difficult to tell where you’re being attacked from as the indicators aren't always the most accurate. I’d implement a system, like most shooters, where if you or your enemy go hot within a certain distance, you show up as a red dot on the mini map. As of now, getting hit randomly just leads to a lot of looking around and hoping you don't get hit again until you find the culprit. That's fine for a weapon like the Ice bow or if you’re attacking while invisible, but something like this could really help with maneuvering and being able to fight back.
The map itself can be pretty bland. There does seem to be a couple of different biomes. There are different parts of the map that have mountains, sand, and dark skies but every structure you see looks about the same. There's either the gray of a dilapidated castle, or the brown of an equally dilapidated house. Each place has a name but because of the map designs they feel different in name and skybox only.
There is a plan to bring lore into this game, as the discord has entire theory craft and lore sections. There’s also the chapters tab in the menu that is grayed out and unable to be used for right now. When they add lore, I think they also need to add some personality to the playable avatars that we’ll be purchasing skins for. It would be cool to hear characters react to the craziness of the combat as it goes down to let you know when you hit a combination attack, but it also can serve as a utility. It’d be incredibly useful for characters to have a voice line if they get attacked. There’s been multiple instances where the only reason I know my team is in danger is because I happened to glance at their health bar right before they get disrupted. Once they are disrupted, it would be useful to hear a ghostly voice announce that someone is attempting to Exile them. The magical universe that the game is based in allows them to take fantastical liberties that other BRs can’t. Right now I don’t think they’re using this to their full advantage.
Performance wise, everything has been fine for me on an Xbox One S. My girlfriend and her little brother however, play on Switch and on that platform they have been disconnected multiple times. There’s also a bug that just makes their screen go black as they play. As their teammate I could see them moving as they moved around their joy cons but they couldn't see so they couldn't defend themselves. There are times when I’ll absolutely maul someone and I have to wonder if they were an actual bot (as this game does have bots and doesn't really mention it) , or if they just had gotten the black screen of doom.
Over on the Spellbreak twitter they just posted that the game has reached the 2 million download landmark and I couldn’t be happier for Proletariat. The game is familiar yet new, fun to play, and surprisingly deep. It has limitless potential to expand, as fans are already clamoring for more gauntlets, runes, game modes and other additions that could bring this out of the BR genre and into even more hands. Its up to Proletariat to decide where they want to take this and I’m excited to sit back and see what they do. Let me know in the comments and if you want to see more content like this subscribe to EyeMakePlaysTV. Maybe even check me out on Twitch where I’ve recently hit affiliate!