31st Union, the studio owned by 2K Games, has just revealed Project Ethos, a free-to-play third-person hero shooter, but what sets it apart are the roguelike elements. The game is being made by veterans from Sledgehammer Games and you can get your hands on Project Ethos today as it enters a community playtest.
Each hero will have something called Evolutions, which are powerful, semi-randomized buffs that are unique to each. So a sniper can turn into a close-range skirmisher or switch to a support role depending on the situation. The company claims that you can build your hero in real time to suit your playstyle and the specific combat situation.
The upcoming playtest will have two game modes, Trials and Gauntlet. Trials is an ongoing fight to collect cores, extract, and unlock Augments which can then fuel your future Trials matches. This is kind of like how you get money after each Counter Strike 2 round. Gauntlet, on the other hand, is the more familiar head-to-head tournament mode for Project Ethos in which you team up against another team and upgrade your hero after each match.
If you’re interested in getting your hands on the Project Ethos playtest, it will become available from today, October 17-20. However, it is geographically limited, so only people in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy will be able to get in. The exact timings can be found below:
- North American Countries
- October 17: 9 AM – 11 PM PT
- October 18-20: 11 AM – 11 PM PT
- European Countries
- October 17: 5 PM – 1 AM GMT+1
- October 18-21st: 1 PM – 1 AM GMT+1
The problem is that we’ve already seen what is happening with hero shooters. Concord is a prime example of how badly new hero shooters with unfamiliar characters can flop. On the other hand, Marvel Rivals has done well likely because it has some memorable faces. Ultimately, new games in the hero shooter genre tend to struggle. Another example is The First Descendant, which has lost 87% of its players in the last three months. We will find out during the playtest how much interest the community has in the game and its unique takes on the genre.
