Project Arc Preview: A tactical shooter with an isometric twist

It's strange to say, but the past year has made it feel as though the multiplayer shooter genre is full. The new additions to the space that we have received over the calendar year have struggled to make much of an impact and to unseat the established titans. Personally, I think that's due to a lack of creativity and innovative game design as with immortal and generally very high-quality projects like Overwatch, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, Fortnite, and so forth, new additions need to feel different and fundamentally unique. This brings me to Project Arc.

Krafton, the publisher of PUBG: Battlegrounds, has utilised its PUBG Studios developer to create a top-down military shooter. It's a shooter that looks to various established names for inspiration but then matches this with an isometric viewing angle that basically throws any familiarity out of the window. It's also a project that is still quite early in its development, meaning there are plenty of rough edges in regards to visuals and menu and UI design and all the fluff that comes once the core gameplay and structure is locked in place. I would know because very, very recently I had the chance to dive into an hour of action to experience a handful of multiplayer rounds in the Team Deathmatch and Demolition game modes.

For those wondering, Project Arc is in part a hero shooter. There are established characters that use established weapon choices, equipment, and gear, and all of this means that when you load into a game, you may pick Dropdown for her assault rifle and poison grenades, Buddy for her long-ranged AWP sniper rifle, or Collision for close-quarters shotgun action. There are already quite a few character options and while you could argue that they are a bit too safe and basic in design, the isometric angle does mean that you're less invested in the character design than you would be if it was third-person or had more of a narrative emphasis as Concord once attempted. Granted this could eventually be the case, as what I tested was exclusively multiplayer action, but the gameplay is also more structured to be similar to Rainbow Six: Siege and less like a hero shooter, and this means you start to associate characters with their actual core task more closely. For example, while Heinz may be less effective in Team Deathmatch, he is an excellent defender in the objective-based Demolition Mode thanks to his ability to see through destructible walls making his shots with his high-calibre Desert Eagle all the more deadly. The point is, the character design feels more closely embedded in the gameplay and environmental setup than a lot of hero shooters tend to feel and because of this each character feels relevant and powerful.

The top-down action may seem like a strange choice and in many ways it is. But it's also unique and different to the competition, and in practice it all works rather well. Project Arc offers a real-time vision sharing system, meaning if you peer around a corner that part of the map will also be visible to allies. If you engage with an enemy and spot them holding a room, a nearby ally may be able to shoot through a destructible wall and remove this opposing threat without you needing to win a clutch one-on-one. What you see is also what your allies see, and vice-versa. This design means that the close-quarters action of Project Arc plays really fluidly and at a high strategic level, but thanks to the isometric view, some of the stress and slower pace that comes with Counter-Strike or Rainbow Six, as examples, is eliminated. Effectively, in Project Arc, rounds are faster and the pace is quicker, all while time-to-kill values are slightly more forgiving but still low enough where mistakes are quickly and unapologetically punished.

In Team Deathmatch, you don't quite get to experience the game in its best form. This mode works and without any problems, but the tension and strategy is eliminated in favour of relentless action. Again, it works, but it's the Demolition Mode that shines.

In the preview session, the Demolition Mode was often referred to as a Counter-Strike-like, but truthfully that doesn't quite define it to me. Rather this is more Rainbow Six: Siege-like, and yes, in many ways Siege's DNA can be traced back to CS, but it has extra fluff and a more streamlined design that Valve's shooter doesn't offer. There's no buying mechanic in part due to the defined character setup, and while the aim is to either defend or attack two objectives on a map, the ability to place reinforced walls and barbed wire, and other defensive elements all shows that this is more than traditional CS gunplay. The gunplay is important without a doubt, but setting up defensive systems by funnelling enemies into areas they don't want to go or busting down walls to surprise defenders when on the attack, these are all parts of Project Arc that make it stand out and feel fresh in a very formulaic genre.

From the short amount of time that I spent playing Project Arc, I did ultimately feel quite impressed and surprised by what I experienced. It's rough and there is work to do to make the action feel a bit more fluid and responsive, plus it'd be great to have a broader array of characters to stop allies picking the same character choice all the time. On top of this, the crouching mechanic definitely needs a bit of work, not because fundamentally it doesn't serve its purpose of allowing users to reduce footstep noise and traverse waist-high air ducts, but mainly because of the camera angle it can be difficult to tell if an enemy is crouching when in the heat of battle, and this is frustrating because a standing ally will shoot over the head of a crouching foe... Essentially, there are only a handful of benefits to standing up in Project Arc at the moment, and perhaps this could be fixed by allowing users to land shots on targets regardless of their posture.

As ever however, the big question with Project Arc is if it can establish itself in the shooter space. There have been a slate of other interesting shooter projects that quickly failed to survive the test of time and that will be a challenge that Project Arc has to overcome. Does it have potential and a unique design? Sure. But so did Hyper Scape and Spellbreak, and games that are seemingly becoming less and less popular as each day passes, like XDefiant, Rogue Company, and The Finals. For the time being, I'll remain optimistic that Project Arc has what it takes to thrive and I'm looking forward to getting to check out the game once again.