Developer: Ammobox Studios
Publisher: Ammobox Studios
Platforms: PC
Tested on: PC
Eximius: Seize the Frontline – Review
After a period of Early Access on Steam since 2018, Eximius: Seize the Frontline has now been fully released. Eximius: Seize the Frontline combines tactical FPS gameplay with the strategic decision-making of an RTS game. This game offers a 5v5 multiplayer experience where four players function as an Officer while the fifth is the Commander who is in charge of building your team’s base, providing much-needed support. This game seems to have something for everyone. Now, we got the chance to take a look at the full version of Eximius: Seize the Frontline.
Story
As an FPS/RTS hybrid game where the focus lies on its gameplay, Eximius: Seize the Frontline doesn’t really have a story mode. In this game, the only modes you can play are a PvP and a PvE mode where two teams battle for victory in a kind of Capture the Flag mode. The game does have an intro trailer that explains the background story of the game, the state of the world and who the two factions are, whom you can enlist with. Sadly, the two factions only function as one of the two sides you’ll be a part of when entering the playing field, with some minor differences in equipment and mostly appearance. The game would really benefit from a story mode being added in a future update.
Graphics
The graphics of Eximius: Seize the Frontline look really great when you play as an Officer. The theme of the game is very futuristic, where the weapons and vehicles look really good, while you’re still fighting in urban areas that look similar to cities in real life with no real futuristic architecture to be seen. In the Commander’s view, the game still retains a lot of the details the structures already had and will still be good to look at. The more advanced units look quite awesome, which shows the developers have definitely put some work into designing them.
Sound
The music used in Eximius: Seize the Frontline fits the gameplay and genre of the game perfectly. In the menus, you can hear some easy but also quite tense background music that fits the theme of war and battle quite well. While playing, you’ll constantly hear that your base or allies are being attacked, so you can jump in and save the day. You won’t hear a lot of music when playing the game, but while you are playing, you’ll be more focused on communicating with your teammates than listening to the background music anyway. In the end, it’s not really that bad that they didn’t put a lot of music in the actual battles.
Gameplay
Eximius: Seize the Frontline is an FPS/RTS Hybrid that combines the two genres in one game to offer a competitive and tactical experience for a maximum of five players per team. You’ll fight in post-apocalyptic urban areas where you fight for your team and try to beat the other faction in completing the given objectives. You’ll play in teams of five with four Officers under one Commander that leads them on to victory.
As you start the game for the first time, you’ll automatically get an intro about the events that took place and will then send you straight into a tutorial where you’ll learn the basic controls of the game. After you’ve had the basic controls, you’ll enter a massive simulation room where you can start some battle practice to further master the game’s controls as an Officer. Sadly, for the Commander part of the gameplay, there is no tutorial available. Instead, the developers have added video tutorials that show the usage of all the commands available to the Commander. After watching these videos, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how to play as a Commander.
After playing and watching these tutorials, you can either choose to play alone as both a Commander and Officer in an offline PvE match or play online with up to four other players in a PvE match or even a full-on PvP match against five other players, resulting in a 10-player game. Sadly, that last one is really hard to find as the game’s player base isn’t really that big at this point and when you find matches via the Server Browser, you need to be lucky they aren’t locked private matches. Creating a public server will most likely result in you having to wait a very long time before enough players have joined, if you even have the patience for this. If you find an ongoing match, you can easily join one of the two teams as you won’t have to wait for a new match to start.
Luckily, this hasn’t ruined the game experience entirely, as playing against AI-controlled enemies can be fun as well. Each team will still have four Officers and one Commander, even without others having joined your team. When you play alone, you can trade roles with one of your Officers, so you can join in on the battle while another player can keep on crafting. When a Commander doesn’t actively hand out commands, you’ll notice that many of the crafted units will stand idle until they get an assignment like joining an Officer or attacking a certain area. It is key for someone to seriously take on the role of the Commander to build new units, assign them where needed and listen to your Officers to help them with whatever you can. A good Commander can make or break the game here.
As an Officer, you fight for territory as part of your team’s army in first-person. In turn, the Commander can assign units to you that will assist you in combat against enemy threats and they will listen to your commands, so you can use them as you please. A good Commander will pay attention to his Officers and supply them with new allies when necessary so that they can complete their mission. When provided with the right units as an Officer, you can claim new resource points and gain ground against your opponent and even destroy enemy structures. These troops can heal you when you get downed in battle, but sadly, they won’t always do this, as this command will often get bugged which leaves you to die right in front of them. The shooter side of this game does feel a little outdated as it feels really simple and misses the complexity that defines the FPS genre nowadays. For example, the switching between aiming down your sights and hip fire doesn’t really feel natural, as it almost instantly switches. Aside from that, the guns shoot quite easily, which makes the combat somewhat easy to pick up.
This game offers you a decent arsenal of weapons to equip yourself with as an Officer. From handguns and assault rifles to heavy weapons, there’s always something for everyone. In this game, you need resources to buy weapons for your loadout as an Officer, build structures, research equipment and craft units as a Commander. There are three types of resources in this game; money, energy and supplies. Money is mostly needed for building structures and units, while energy and supplies are needed for crafting units and researching equipment. As an Officer, you’ll have a separate energy resource that allows you to purchase weapons for your loadout. This resource will gradually increase depending on the number of resource points in control by your team. When you die, you will return to your basic loadout and you need to purchase all your preferred weapons and equipment again.
Conclusion
Eximius: Seize the Frontline has definitely left us with mixed feelings. Aside from some gameplay adjustments that can be implemented in the game with updates, we can’t really say that this game is bad. The game plays pretty well in both the Officer and Commander role, although the shooting side of the game could have felt a lot more realistic (and modernized). If you are lucky enough to find some other players to play this game with, you’ll definitely have a great time, especially when you use voice chat with your teammates. The game will really become fun if the player base grows. If you like the sound of an FPS/RTS hybrid game that pits you with your friends or other players around the world against other players in a battle where both skill and tactical knowledge come in handy to get the upper hand, we’d definitely recommend trying this game as it can lead to some very fun gaming nights.
Eximius: Seize the Frontline - Review,
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