12 years ago
Why Hybrid’s Meta Game War Is Broken
Third-person shooter Hybrid released Wednesday with a fairly turbulent launch. For most of the day the servers were unavailable, leading Microsoft to pull the game from the marketplace to prevent players from purchasing something they couldn’t play. As an online only game, Hybrid’s release yesterday reiterated that when the plug is pulled on the servers, the plug is pulled on the game itself. As such, the value of the game relies upon players continuing to purchase and play it. The game will eventually peak and decay until the moment there are no longer enough players to sustain the servers and developer 5th Cell decides to pull the plug causing the game to cease to exist. As such, 5th Cell has done everything they can to keep players interested long term creating a Meta Game involving a war between two factions: Variant and Paladin. The issue is the Meta Game is broken.
Hybrid focuses on three on three squad-based matches. The game adds a unique twist in the sense that ground movement is limited to moving along cover and flipping from one side of a wall to another. The majority of movement occurs in the air. Players can beeline from one cover to the next using their jetpacks and changing their end destination to any visible cover. Players can move up and down or left and right while in the air in order to strafe and avoid incoming fire. Imagine having a string between the two covers that can be pulled in various directions to an extent, but the movement is tethered. The result is a highly unique and interesting flow of combat that Todd will be discussing in depth in his forthcoming review.