Developer: V1 Interactive
Publisher: Private Division
Platform: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Tested on: PC
Disintegration – Review
Disintegration is the first big game from V1 Interactive, a studio that’s founded by Marcus Lehto, the co-creator of Halo. This alone raises high expectations, obviously. V1 Interactive worked hard to make a high-quality game as an independent studio, and at a first glance, it shows. So let’s see what this new game is all about, shall we?
Story
In the nearby future, scientists discover a way to transfer consciousness by actually transferring the brain to a robotic body. By doing so, the world should be able to heal a bit and stuff like viruses and famine are part of the past. The bad guy of the story is named Rayonne, and he wants to see all of humanity’s consciousness transferred to a robot body. Obviously, some people rebel, and some of these outlaws are the main subject of the game that you will follow as you play as Romer Shoal, a Gravcycle driver. The story’s strongest points are the characters and how they communicate with each other, the weakest are weirdly enough the cutscenes. Not because they look bad, but because they are chaotic and don’t really add valuable information. It’s one of the weirder flaws that Disintegration has.
Graphics
Disintegration looks as polished as you could expect from a game industry veteran who started his own company. It’s a rather slick and unique looking third and first-person view game, where the models might be somewhat generic robots but the environments seem to tell their own story. That being said, a lot of (enemy) animations are also a bit static, but this might be easily forgiven by the fact that it’s all about robots. The cutscenes look great, but as said before they contribute little to the game that’s valuable.
Sound
Like most of the graphics, Disintegration’s sound division sounds like high production value as well. There is great voice acting and the sound effects complement the gameplay well. Music, however, is barely present and at times it really feels like something’s missing in that aspect. Aside from gunfire and voice acting it’s often too quiet where emotional support by music could have made a difference in making the game feel like ”more” than it is.
Gameplay
Disintegration manages to be something that’s part Real-Time Strategy and part First-Person Shooter. The gameplay follows the storyline where before each mission you get to walk around in a hanger from a third-person perspective, talking to people and gaining extra objectives for your following mission. When content with who you talked to, you select the next mission (or one your previously played) and get to it. This is where it gets a bit tricky. The gameplay basically blends the two genres well. You get to oversee part of the battlefield and give objectives to a select group of units where the objectives consist of ”target that enemy”, ”walk there”, or ”interact with said object”. At the same time, you get to support those units with your own dual-gun fire on the enemy targets from the air, as well as that you can switch your gun to a healing gun so your units stay alive. This works, but it’s also all the game is.
You have some movement capabilities to move up and down and in any direction of the battlefield, but you are limited to the objective area until you completed the objective at hand. This quickly turns the game into a step-by-step clearing-the-field game where you have to make sure no enemies are alive. And as there’s not much strategy involved, it gets tedious rather fast. The main component that stirs it all up a bit is that your units, which are mostly about three, have their own special attack with a cooldown when used. That, and you can slightly upgrade them in between missions with special objects that you find in the field.
There’s also a ”scanner” mode where you get more information about objects and enemies in the field which might give you a tactical advantage by seeing stuff that possibly explodes when shot, but this barely does anything for the overall gameplay. There’s also a multiplayer mode that’s a nice touch, especially with the cool-looking variations on your character and units that feel way more unique compared to the single-player mode, but it doesn’t take away that generally, Disintegration just doesn’t go deep enough in the gameplay. It stays on the surface with a MOBA-type of RTS hybrid that feels flat by lack of options and tactical variation.
Conclusion
Disintegration has all the ingredients of a big AAA production, and it’s clear to see it’s a game that comes from experienced developers. This is all nice, BUT the gameplay is far from unique enough by the lack of depth in the RTS aspect as well as the FPS aspect. There’s just not enough to do and not enough challenges or variations in tactics to keep you entertained for long.
Disintegration - Review,
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