Spectre Divide Review

Spectre Divide is an upcoming tactical 3v3 first-person shooter game. I found out about the game about two weeks before the closed beta started and I got intrigued by the concept that sets it apart: each player controls two characters, referred to as spectres. I will elaborate more on it later. The game is developed my Mountaintop Studios, a new game studio from the U.S.A.

The concept

Spectre Divide comes with a crazy concept I haven’t seen done before. Each player controls two characters on the battlefield. These characters called spectres carry a pad that lets them move to where the other spectre throws it. Described like this, it might sound confusing, so I’ll quote their Steam page:

Use Duality to freely swap between your second body (called a Spectre) at any moment to outplay the enemy team. Strategically place your Spectre to cover multiple sites across the map, play two angles at once, and quickly reinforce teammates. Death can’t stop you. Your Spectre is a second chance at victory, giving you twice the uptime so you can run it back and make sure to hit your shots the second time around.

While you are controlling one of your spectres, the other ones stays where you left it, crouched and will send you alerts if it detects other players. There are two types of alerts: the Warning if it detects an enemy in its area of detection, and the Danger if it has direct view of an enemy/it’s getting attacked.

On top of the duality system, Spectre Divide also offers a sponsor system. Each player on each team selects a sponsor at the beginning of each match. The sponsor determines your loadout for the match. Each of them represent a style of gameplay, from more classic shooter game to more tactical. Each of the sponsors also have a specific role assigned to them. You can find all the details about each sponsor and ability here, but here is a quick list of each of each ability.

Finally, like a few tactical shooters, you buy your weapons at the beginning of each rounds. The weapons that will be available depends on how much money you earned from winning or losing the previous rounds. There are currently 20 unique weapons in the game. What makes the weapon selection different, is that you buy packages of weapon, you can’t select specific guns for both of your spectres. You buy a package. Meaning you can have one spectre that stays behind with a precision rifle while the other ones gets close to the fight with an automatic rifle.

Getting a handle of the game

In my experience, you get used to the concept in a few matches and you become able to control both spectres somewhat efficiently kind of quickly. What I find harder to get used to is the speed of the game. In my few matches testing the game so far, I was never able to finish a match under 30 minutes. This isn’t an issue at all, the game is fun and the matches are worth the 30 minutes, but it’s hard to only play a quick match. My real issue with the game’s speed is the movement. The game takes a lot of inspiration from the counter-strike games. I have never played one of those, so I don’t know how the movement works in those games, but I find the speed at which a player moves and the lack of sprint quite annoying. Situations that I could survive if I was able to sprint out of them become deathtraps here. Instead of a sprint button, the game gives you a walk button.

I find that getting used to the loadouts takes some time, you have to try them through multiple matches in order to really get a feel for them and see which one works best for you. But the loadouts designs are really interesting and work well in the game’s universe. The guns also take some getting used to based on how much fps you have played and the gun you choose.

My thoughts on the game

Overall, this game has a lot of potential and it will be really hard to mess it up. I am not usually a big fan of fps games, but this one just got my attention and it keeps me entertained. I am also a big fan of the cyberpunk vibe of the game and the designs of the 3 maps and the weapons. I know this game is not finished yet, but for now, I give it a note of 8.5/10. I am very excited for the full release and can’t wait to see what will happen in the future with this game!