Verdun: a Great War Shooter

[Phillip Hone]

A friend of mine recently gave me a copy of Verdun, a WWI shooter.

Website

It's currently still in beta (we're playing it in early access).

Graphically, it's not that amazing, but for an indie game with a low price tag it looks pretty respectable and maybe the graphics will improve by the final release.

The game is centered on team matches that pit France against Germany. Your goal is to capture and defend trenches, and contrary to what you might expect, things are actually pretty fluid and back and forth. I spent much of my time in the match running around fighting people who were running around the in the trench. That said, I spent more time either charging across fields or shooting at people from a trench.

You play as part of a four man squad, each player filling a specific role. The officers, for instance, can call in mortars but don't have rifles. Playing online with random people, I found I was not able to coordinate in any way with my squad, which was frustrating. It didn't seem like there was much incentive to stick with your squad or work with them, as opposed to just working with any random person on your team. That said, I haven't yet gotten the chance to play with people I know so I'm reserving judgement on that account.

Players join servers into squads, which might explain why there is currently no mechanism to keep teams balanced. Every match I played had one side that was 1.5x or 2x the size of the other team. It's possible to join in as a one man squad, or a two man squad, etc, and the game doesn't want to force squad mates to split up, so I guess that's why there's no auto-even of teams. Understandable, but it's something they need to find a way to fix if this game is going to work. Personally, I think making squads break up would be a better alternative.

The guns are pretty fun to use. In most WWII shooters, rifles are completely disappointing, but here they're a blast. Lethality is refreshing high, with one shot from a rifle usually taking someone down. I didn't see any machine guns while I was playing but I would be pretty surprised if they actually aren't in the game. I'll have to look into that. Bayonets are in, of course, and they're effective, perhaps a little too effective... but again, I haven't played that much yet.

Has anyone else tried this out? What are your thoughts?

[Purple]

Is there any intention to make this anything but a multiplayer only game?