By blending FPS and RTS mechanics, Disintegration carves out its own niche but despite a promising world and engaging multiplayer, the main action is often undercut by a generic campaign.
Disintegration succeeds where it counts. Developer V1 Interactive set out to make an FPS/RTS hybrid and does so with surprising efficiency. But further and further into the game, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the rough edges that weaken what could have been a fairly exceptional package.
Players fulfill their first-person shooter dreams by taking on the role of Romer Shoal, a former celebrity who becomes the leader of a ragtag resistance force. In the world of Disintegration, humans continue existing by shedding their flesh and bone and preserving their brains in robotic bodies through a process called integration. Shoal, like many of the his allies, went through the process of integration but are in stark opposition to the antagonistic presence of Rayonne, a militaristic force hoping to wipe the last of the natural, non-integrated humans off the face of the Earth.
The world of Disintegration fights to latch onto relevancy. A suite of characters that is admirably acted and hosts familiar personalities allows the plot to sweep through an us versus them narrative but the overall result may be forgettable to most. Whether in the short bursts of cutscenes or after long swaths of gameplay, Disintegration may not lay its hooks into you as much as it aspires to do. Instead, players may grasp at the more subtle details of the world, small threads that attempt to place thicker building blocks in the world or flesh out its hardened metal entities. Post-mission, players are taken to small hub areas where Romer can converse with his crew but the main hub is needlessly massive and feels quite lifeless when compared to social spaces or towns in similar games.
If Disintegration‘s narrative is serving as a prelude to a greater vision, these shortcomings can be slightly forgiven. Even when robotic body types felt almost stereotypical in their writing, I felt enough of a bond with their cause to ensure that Romer was a capable enough leader. Still, this world can be mined for more material and be larger in scope to better wrap players up in this odd future.
The prime focus of Disintegration is to weave techniques found in two disparate genres. First-person shooters rely on their brisk pace, where players with rapid reaction times and a keen sense of awareness often prevail. Real-time strategy games thrive on planning, sending troops out to strategic locations that focus on team composition and overwhelming force. Have the two been incorporated before? Sure. But Disintegration has a tendency to swing both ways, depending on player preference and difficulty adjustment.
As Romer, players pilot a gravcycle which houses the first-person view and a large portion of the action. Being a vehicle with impressive speed and vertical movement, the gravcycle is able to hover over the landscape and zip around with relative ease. Missions begin with a specific gravcyle loadout, whether that be rapid-firing guns and a healing grenade or high-damage rockets and mines. A strange choice by V1 Interactive was to force players into a single loadout for every campaign mission. While I think the choice was made to ensure that players get their hands on different pieces of equipment before diving into multiplayer, it does encumber fresh gameplay.
In the first handful of missions, my gravcycle had the same abilities, guns that slowly ticked away enemy health as long as pinpoint accuracy was used and a healing grenade that kept my units alive. This loadout is essentially a support build, one that asks players to sweep around the field and chip away at priority targets and direct the team around. On lower difficulties–or for those who prefer a shooter slant–the gravcycle is an efficient machine of death. Its ability to rapidly dash around allows players to cover large areas without having to worry too much about enemy fire and the primary guns are strong enough to eliminate targets faster without the help of support units.
Personally, I enjoy Disintegration as a hybrid of its two halves. In the gravcycle, players are meant to be the beacon of support, an in-game manifestation of the player who in normal RTS games might just click around to order troops. The physical presence of Romer and the gravcycle allows players to connect with the action in the battlefield, offering a synergy that ultimately succeeds on a tricky proposition. The other half of combat results from the integrated friends Romer gains over the course of the campaign. Where Romer hovers above the ground, these troops are foot soldiers, acting on their own accord at times but most effective when directed by the player.
I highly suggest undertaking Disintegration‘s tutorial before diving into the campaign as it does a great job at teaching the basics. In the gravcycle, players can point their reticle on a spot on the map and have their troops take cover, move to different positions, interact with objectives, or target specific enemies. In the seat of a gravcycle, keen awareness of what is going on is essential in managing the small amount of troops against larger numbers. Players not only need to focus on keeping the gravcycle from blowing up, they will need to keep troops alive with smart tactics. Focusing fire on high priority targets or shooting destructible objects that might spread damaging fire over large numbers are in the moment decisions that often turn the tide of an engagement in your favor.
When a member of the team goes down, players have a limited time to swoop in and collect their remains which lets them respawn a few seconds later. There were many times I was close to death and had to find out a way to dash into fire and collect a respawn token while trying not to explode. For additional strategy, each integrated buddy comes with special skills that operate on cooldowns. Players can direct a member to throw a large slowing field and then set up someone else to throw a concussion grenade. Combo attacks like this will stagger enemies, enabling them to take greater damage. Figuring out the right way to time abilities and create similar combo attacks will significantly even the odds.
Despite the tactical prowess Disintegration puts on display, its depth begins to run thin the longer the campaign goes on. Outside of the difficulty of being accurate with a controller and attempting to perform somewhat precise actions, checkpoints can be inhibiting when taking into account the length of encounters. On harder difficulties, missions can run over a half an hour and failure may result in a tedious climb back to where players fell.
While the bones of Disintegration‘s combat are strong and effective in the genre-blending, V1 Interactive doesn’t push their own envelope. Mission pacing often doesn’t feel as exciting as it could be and combat situations become rote after several bouts of two opposing forces ticking away at each other. RTS games often lack a cinematic flair but there could have been more opportunities to really stretch the imagination of how players fight over the often large maps. Upgrades players access are standard but don’t have enough meat considering the predetermined loadouts.
These concerns are alleviated to a degree in multiplayer, where the combination of skills can be put to the test against players who are able to direct troops as well. Three modes, Zone Collector, Collector, and Retrieval, are moderately standard online experiences but cater to the mechanics of Disintegration in up to 5v5 matches. Zone Control acts as a King of the Hill/Control Point variant but only ground units can capture and contest points while gravcycle takedowns net points. Collector is like Kill Confirmed where players collect brain cans from downed gravcycles, fallen ground troops, and spawn points. Retrieval is more complex with one side defending and the other attacking. Attackers must retrieve cores that can only be held by ground troops and deliver them to a drop point near the defending side’s spawn. Defenders must stop the attackers from completing their job.
Finesse is harder to achieve in multiplayer because players are often having to make even quicker decisions because they are at the mercy of other humans. I enjoy having the ground troops playing a role in matches but was not surprised at the amount of pure gravcycle dogfights that took place. When a pilot dies, so do their troops. Nine different multiplayer crews are available that offer not just cosmetic flair but different loadouts. Neon Dreams and Tech Noir focus on movement but are significantly weaker while King’s Guard or Warhedz offer more durability.
It’s obvious that V1 Interactive put a lot of heart into multiplayer not only because the maps offer several opportunities for ambush and strategy, but because Disintegration‘s tactics actually feel like they make a difference in the hands of a skilled player. Forgetting about the significance of ground troops is easy when a good portion of the action is taking place from above. Yet I’ve encountered several players that are effective killers using various crews with combinations of skills I wouldn’t have expected. Honestly, this kind of variety and bombast was needed more in the campaign.
Disintegration‘s hybrid genre experiment is without a doubt worth playing. Though its campaign doesn’t pull the curtain back enough on its world, it leaves enough of an impression that players should want more. Getting into Romer’s gravcycle and becoming an effective leader is natural but the mechanics have just enough depth that the game still remains difficult. Smoothing out the rougher edges and diversifying its core content, V1 Interactive would have a stellar campaign on its hand. Thankfully, Disintegration‘s multiplayer carries the baton enough. Will it foster a strong enough community to justify new content drops in the future? That’s certainly the hope with purchasable cosmetics and if the game finds an audience, it’s not a hard future to imagine.
