Announced three years ago at a Nintendo Direct livestream, Star Wars: Hunters is one of those games that you can’t imagine suffered a long and difficult pitch process. Someone just had to say “It’s Overwatch but in Star Wars” and the development budget was in their account that afternoon. It is a no-brainer, and of all the entertainment projects the Star Wars brand has been slathered on to over the past three years, it’s certainly among the most understandable and well crafted.
Set after the fall of the Galactic Empire, Hunters is a four-v-four team-based online shooter, which, like Overwatch, allows players to choose from a selection of hero fighters, each with their own abilities and strategies. You can be a minigun-wielding Stormtrooper, firing 500 rounds a minute into rebel scum, or a Miralukan sharpshooter with a long-range sniper rifle, or perhaps a Rebel warrior with team-healing gadgets. Basically it’s the standard team-shooter classes – tank, sniper, healer, etc – but with sillier names.
There are several arenas to fight in, based on familiar Star Wars locations, such as a tree village on Endor and a Tatooine outpost – each with useful features including zip lines and jump boost pads. These are compact, multilevel spaces – just like in Overwatch – and they support a range of strategies from running right into the centre, guns blazing, to sneaking up into overwatch (pun intended) positions to take out foe from afar. A lot of the sound effects are drawn straight from the movies which constantly provides nostalgic hits of pleasure: amid the combat, laser blasts zing through the air accompanied by the noise of groaning wookiees and bounty hunter jetpacks. However, the scenery is too cute and soft-focused to really capture the grungy, rusted locales of the Imperial galaxy.
As you fight, you gather XP, a process accelerated by taking on daily and long-term quests and challenges. These level up your characters (you can build your own little cabal of fighters, unlocking new heroes as you go) and strengthen their weapons and defensive stats. You can also gain access to a vast range of cosmetic goods, from outfits to gun decorations. Obviously, this being a free-to-play shooter, there’s optional access to a paid season pass, which opens up a greater range of goods, but to be honest, I’ve unlocked pretty much everything I’ve wanted through hours of playing rather than paying.
The fact that I’ve genuinely wanted to grind this game for upgrades is a good indication that it’s a fun way to spend a few hours. When you’re on a skilled team that actually functions as a unit, the fights are tense and exciting – there’s great, well-balanced interplay between the hero abilities, allowing you to really boss areas of the map, which is helpful when you move on from Deathmatch-style basic option to familiar online shooter modes such as Control, where you fight to overtake and keep three control points, and Trophy Chase where the sides fight to keep hold of a marauding droid. There are also little attempts to bring in the feel of the movie’s action sequences – such as when control points are suddenly opened to passing vehicles and if you don’t move out of the way, you’ll be splattered on the windscreen of a hover truck.
Hunters is not quite as much fun as playing Overwatch … or watching Star Wars. It could have done with some truly original features, or more movie content tied in with the gameplay. Instead, it is a decent team shooter that you can play on Switch or mobile, and swap your progress between the two, so you never have to go more than a few moments without levelling up a wookiee. Yes, it tries to bamboozle you with many quests, challenges and blinking icons on the menu screen so that you inevitably fold and buy a £10 season pass, but you can definitely defeat the game’s Jedi mind tricks and have a blast without paying. The force is strong in this one, but not that strong.
Source: theguardian.com
