Disintegrationis the first game from developer V1 Interactive, founded by Marcus Lehto, one of the co-creators ofHalo. The small, 30-person team at V1 Interactive is creating a game that is a unique mashup of gameplay and mechanics that have clearly been influenced by some of the best games in Bungie’s catalog, games that Lehto had a key role in developing during his time at theDestinydeveloper.
That’s not to say thatDisintegrationdoesn’t bring something new to the table, because it clearly does. But just as games of the past influence the games of the present and future, so too doesDisintegrationlook to be a masterful amalgamation of Lehto’s personal game development history.
Disintegrationtakes place in a sci-fi version of a future earth where, on the brink of extinction, humans placed their brains into robotic frames to survive. Players take the role of a character named Romer who pilots a floating Gravcycle vehicle and commands a small band of troops. It is a mashup of mechanics fromfirst-person shooting, vehicle combat, and real-time strategy, and anyone who knows Lehto’s and Bungie’s history will see where many of these influences come from.
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Obviously, theHalofranchise was a master at both first-person shooting mechanics and vehicle combat, which come together in the main shooting gameplay as players pilot the Gravcycle. Drawing from great vehicles likeHalo’s Warthog and the Sabre space battle fromHalo: Reach,Disintegrationlooks to give players that same easy-to-control precision of piloting a sci-fi craft. That’s not the only connection toHalo: Reach, the game on whichLehto served as creative director. Players will always have a squad with special roles and abilities that they will command in battle.
These characters chatter and talk to each other and the player, with unique personalities and points of view, reminiscent ofNoble Team fromHalo: Reach. That could also be in part because V1’s head writer is Lee Wilson, who served as the story and cinematic lead onHalo: Reach.Disintegrationwill have a full single-player campaign that tells the story of Romer and the group of outlaws he leads into battle, meaning there’s ample opportunity for these characters to shine.
The other side of the game, the RTS-style gameplay, has roots in another Bungie franchise Lehto worked on,Myth. It was a real-time strategy game that stripped the RTS format down to its most action-oriented elements. It removed resource gathering, economy management, and base construction from other RTS games likeAge of Empires, and instead gave players a pre-assembled army and sent them into combat. Units had their own strengths and weaknesses, and there was plenty of story delivered throughout the game.
Disintegrationseems to take this basic idea and boils it down to even more of its most action-oriented parts, giving players just a handful of units to command with more unique special abilities, perhaps more akin to something like a hero shooter likeOverwatchorPaladins,rather than an RTS. It all leads to a shooter-vehicle-strategy game that has never been seen before.
Very few have been able to go hands-on with the game up to this point, but that is about to change withclosed and open technical betas coming later this month. For fans of Lehto and Bungie’s great games of the past,Disintegrationis very much a game that they will want to keep on their radar.
