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Prejudice Beta 2011
We take our first look at this sequel to 2009's Section 8 and its all-new Swarm mode.Last year's Section 8 was a large-scale, sci-fi multiplayer shooter that let you play as a futuristic super-soldier equipped with heavy-duty weapons, high-tech gadgets, and a power suit that let you run so quickly you could literally kill your enemies by running into them headfirst. While the first game was ambitious and its reach arguably exceeded its grasp, developer TimeGate Studios has already returned for round two with Section 8: Prejudice, a full-fledged sequel intended to improve on everything in the original game.
While the developer created the first game to be a multiplayer shooter, it readily admits that the first game's single-player campaign, which was basically a primer for multiplayer, left something to be desired. As such, the developer is building out a full story-based single-player campaign that covers the conflict between the elite soldiers of Section 8 and their sworn enemies, a militia force known as the Arm of Orion (which, as it turns out, is secretly controlled by a shadowy faction of elite troopers who might have been Section 8's predecessors). You can expect to see a full campaign about five hours in length, with nine missions that take place in different environments and voiced cinematic cutscenes between them.
Check your six. Section 8 is back…with extreme prejudice. Not the politically incorrect kind, the other kind.
We watched a few missions in the single-player game, including the tutorial mission (which starts off at the Section 8 firing range), as well as a mission that required us to destroy guarded antiair turrets on the ground by using the explosive satchel gadget to blow them up. We then skipped ahead to the very next mission, an airdrop deployment that was made possible by the removal of the AA guns on terra firma. This gave us a chance to see Section 8's drop gameplay in action. When you make a drop, you'll actually see your character from above, from a third-person perspective, as he plummets to the ground below. And because you can control the direction of his drop, if you're skilled enough, you may be able to frag an enemy by landing directly on his head (this applies in both single-player and multiplayer).
We then jumped over to watch the new Swarm mode in action--a cooperative multiplayer mode that requires you and your buddies to hold an outpost against hordes of increasingly tough enemies that start off on foot and then eventually bring heavy mechanized suits and even tanks into battle. Fortunately, so can you. Over the course of the match, and in other multiplayer matches, your character will earn experience points that actually carry over from match to match and let you choose different, higher-level deployable items, such as stationary turrets, tanks of your own, and the new hoverbike vehicle, which moves even faster than overdrive sprinting (and is just as deadly if you run over an enemy at top speeds).
In Swarm mode, your foes come swarming at the base from all sides for a chance at the outpost's command console--Swarm mode's key to victory or defeat. You and your buddies can use the console to change your weapon and gadget loadout during the match, but if the enemy captures this key point, you'll have a very short window of time to recapture the console until you and your teammates suffer the agony of defeat.
Swarm mode will challenge your to defend a remote outpost against hordes of enemies in an all-out comp stomp.
With Section 8: Prejudice, developer TimeGate clearly intends to fix any and all of the previous games issues and make a far better game, based both on the studio's own observations and tons of feedback culled from the community. The game will launch early next year.
Get the first details on the follow-up to Section 8 in this exclusive interview with design director Brett Norton.
The original Section 8 was an unusual multiplayer shooter that let you and your teammates duke it out online on vast battlefields, armed with custom weapon loadouts, drivable vehicles, and an enhanced type of sprinting called "overdrive." Unfortunately, the game had issues with its multiplayer population and in other areas, but developer TimeGate Studios intends to make good on the original game's potential and produce an even better game in Section 8: Prejudice. Design director Brett Norton explains.
Watch the first trailer for Section 8: Prejudice.
GameSpot: We understand that TimeGate's approach to this new project has to do with its commitment to improving on every aspect of the original game. Can you explain?
Brett Norton: Section 8: Prejudice is a huge evolution of everything we learned while making Section 8 and the incorporation of a lot of great feedback from the community and fans. When we started on Prejudice, we pored through all available resources we had: reviews, community polls, forums questions, post-release focus testing feedback, gameplay metrics…the whole nine yards. We took a hard look at what players liked and asked ourselves, "What do we need to do in order to make Prejudice awesome?"
To that end, we came up with huge list of everything we wanted to do to make Prejudice an amazing game and set out to do it. I'm very happy to say that we've completed nearly the entire list.
GS: Let's get a bit more specific. For instance, one of the most commonly cited issues about the first game was that the single-player game was primarily a primer for multiplayer, and the game's multiplayer experience wasn't perhaps what the studio had hoped it would turn out to be. How is the team approaching single-player play in the new game?
Section 8: Prejudice will build on everything that was great in the original game.
BN: The single-player experience in Prejudice is a stand-alone experience. Yeah, it's still a great tool for teaching new players about the game mechanics, but it has a fully fleshed-out story and vast amount of custom content. In fact, it's one of the most pronounced elements of Prejudice, and we expect the single-player crowd to have a lot of fun with the campaign.
We really wanted to do something grand with Prejudice's campaign, and we were very glad to put as much love into it as we have.
GS: One of the biggest issues with the multiplayer seemed to be the unfortunately low server population, which was an issue that was hard not to notice because many of the multiplayer maps were so huge. How will this be addressed in the new game? Smaller multiplayer maps? More intimate multiplayer modes that function better with smaller groups?
BN: Matchmaking, server population control, and pacing (tied to map size) have been our major multiplayer focuses. Prejudice does a great job of getting players into the right game with a lot of human players, thanks to some hefty upgrades to our matchmaking tools. That's one of the behind-the-scenes improvements we've made that will just make everything better, even if you don't actively see it working.
In terms of pacing and gameplay, we spent a lot of time tweaking map size to provide a better gameplay experience. We normalized a lot of the travel times and generally played to the strengths of the best maps in Section 8. We studied the community's feedback here and focused on the maps that withstood the test of time.
That's not to say we're turning the game into a small-scale corridor crawl. We're still committed to making great large-scale, outdoor experiences. Prejudice really nails that experience by putting all of our knowledge and the community's feedback to the test. You get this feeling of a large, dense, immersive map existing all around you, but you're never bored or without an action hot spot nearby.
You can still expect to see huge outdoor maps.
GS: Some players also took issue with how the original game's vehicles weren't as exciting or impactful as they perhaps could have been. How will the new game improve on this issue?
BN: Experienced players often did amazingly well in the vehicles, and our goal has been to bring that same experience to everyone. Prejudice solves this by supporting several very different control schemes for the vehicles. This isn't just, "Oh hey, we remapped two buttons for you." We've actually implemented completely different control and camera systems, and we're giving players the choice to use whichever they like best. Veteran players will feel right at home with the advanced controls, and new Prejudice fans will find the vehicles are an absolute blast to drive as well.
[To make vehicles more exciting], we spent a lot of time putting some more substance into vehicle gameplay. Tanks are even deadlier and have a much easier time running down unsuspecting infantry. It's going to be a game-changing moment when one of the heavy tanks comes to the battlefield, and it'll take a coordinated response to bring one down.
We're not going to reveal all our vehicle secrets just yet though; so stay tuned to hear more about them later. There are more vehicle goodies in store…
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