Turn-based overwatchin’ for those of us who suck at shooters
You’ll have to forgive me for not knowing anything about Corvus Belli’s Infinity Universe. From what I gather, it’s a growing gaming and multimedia world based on miniatures-focused tabletop games that’s earned its place in fandome. I hadn’t heard about it, but that’s also why so many of ist games exist: to get us interested in the source material without forcing us to know deep lore. Thankfully no deep history was needed to play Hexadome, the upcoming project from Blindspot Games, and I could come out of my hands-on with my eyes just on the gameplay and not need to study ahead of time.
And the gameplay? It’s kinda fun, actually!
The Hexadome: Aristeia Showdown is a turn-based tactics game that focuses on hero play and character combinations. It’s set against a backdrop of a popular TV show where the teams of three combatants are tasked to make it to a goal zone before time runs out. Think of XCom crossed with Overwatch and even some Mario + Rabbids. Each character has a wide variety of skills and special abilities and balance is crucial — if we’re too heavy on melee then we’ll inevitably get squashed because we can’t heal. If we’re angled more towards defense then the other team could stake their claim on the goal faster and without much obstacle. The PAX demo had a few different heroes to draft in my battle against the PC’s team, so I tried my best to get a solid mix of offense and defense. They’re neat character designs; they’re all sort of based on animal-like aliens with cybernetic and robotic elements. It’s all high-scifi, and very colorful, like something out of an early millennium animation.
The name gives away the layout of the battlefield: hexes serve as our move spaces, with obstacles and pillars dotting the landscape to try and use to our advantage. We can move around, shoot an enemy, and even activate terminals for various effects that can help us or send our opponents into a tizzy. We can even engage the crowd watching us, because as they cheer us on we can get stronger and unleash certain moves to appease them. The game is set into three rounds, and in my first I’m still trying to find my way around the controls and pacing. A timeline at the top helps me see what’s coming next so that I can plan my moves ahead of time, and hovering over a character lets me know what moves they have available (we can even build up power moves to unleash fury). And we have to balance all of it to get us to the goal zone and stay there, so for a newbie like me this means the first round is long. Looooong. I’m not sure if I should run to the center right away, or circle around my opponents and play a sort of offensive defense. Either way, that first round is my lengthy tutorial.
Round 2? That was much quicker. Now that I have my footing, I try to send one of my heroes right to the goal, only to have them get dropped along the way. I put my other two heroes, a sniper and a healer, behind pillars to protect them and to pick off my opponents as they try to get to the goal. I finally save up enough ability points to resurrect my downed hero and send him to the goal just before the round ends.
Round 3, meanwhile, felt like I was finally in control. Not only did I prep ahead of time and activate the right terminal effects, but I was charging towards the zone with the overall win on my mind. Until! Until the game crashes. I was so close! But that comes with the territory of demos at expos, and why devs use the opportunity to understand what bug to fix next.
The Hexadome: Aristeia Showdown is an interesting take on the hero-based PvP genre, and with the focus on turn-based play it might be better for those of us who are burnt out by live service shooters. The demo feels a little repetitive, with three rounds of what feels like the same battle over and over, so perhaps the team has some tricks up their sleeve to make each round and battle unique later on. The fundamentals are there, though, and I don’t need to read a book or feel bad for not knowing who these characters are — it’s just pick up, play, and hopefully win.
The Hexadome: Aristeia Showdown is set for Early Access this Summer.
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