Supervive preview - The next 10,000-hour game?

Supervive is currently being presented, a huge and silent (until today) bet that aspires not only to be the new reference in Hero Shooters, but also to storm the very Olympus where Riot's untouchable League of Legends sits. And for that Supervive (formerly known as Project Loki) has a couple of those up its sleeve. The Theorycraft team is mostly made up of development veterans from other AAAs, so they know what they're doing. And they mean business.

I'll make it clear that these impressions were taken when I was able to try out some of the game modes (Entanglement and Team Play) in some closed-door alpha sessions. Although I'm not a LoL player, nor is it a genre that particularly appeals to me, I felt comfortable within minutes with Supervive's controls. You choose one of the heroes (the final number of which is not yet defined), and each of them has different stats and weapon types and abilities, which are controlled with the classic Q, W, E, R like League of Legends.

The first of all is that its design, while unmistakably reminiscent of LoL, is much more influenced in its gameplay by Blizzard's Overwatch series. The roles are very well defined, and I focused on a DPS sniper with a huge, if somewhat weak, rifle. With her I tried out a training "debug mode" to get to know the basics of the game. I was particularly struck by the focus on jumping as one of the core mechanics, but that's because the battle arena is really just a huge map full of chasms and obstacles to jump over... or fly over. Exactly, there is a "glide" system where we can move quickly over the map, but that leaves the character very exposed (and very vulnerable) to enemy attacks. From players to any kind of monster or NPC that swarms around.

But Supervive is not about solo gliding around this huge map. The main "Squad Clash" mode divides players into groups of four to explore the area, take out AI-controlled enemies and get stronger, then finally track down the other team and fight to the death. It's more slow-burn strategy than Riot's MOBA, and felt almost like a Warcraft 3 campaign mission, only with friends.

Creative strategy also comes into play even when the fight seems lost, as there are systems in place to resurrect your fallen squad members and continue the fight. There is only one rule, the last team standing wins.

Of course, being the limited test and with many systems still in development, we were only able to see two-team clashes, but I look forward to seeing the potential for more gang clashes when the open beta arrives later this year.

So what does Supervive feel like on the keyboard and mouse? Well, Theorycraft Games may have struck gold and possibly the next step in the evolution of the Hero Shooter. If it maintains a good balance between characters, environment, equipment and pace of play, I have no doubt that there will be a game here for a while. And it will be open to everyone, because it will be free-to-play.