LawBreakers is a hero shooter that aims to accelerate the Overwatch gameplay even further. Those who want to take a look at the new game from Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski will have the opportunity in the closed beta.
LawBreakers looks a bit like a mix between the shiny MOBA Paragon and the hero shooter Overwatch. But while Blizzard opts for cute comic graphics and a reduced level of violence, LawBreakers is decidedly darker, more realistic, and brutal.
In a distant future, the moon shattered and since then strange gravity phenomena have plagued Earth. In the resulting chaos, the so-called “Breakers” want to wreak havoc, while the law enforcers of “Law” try to stop them.
LawBreakers – Robbers and Cops in Free Fall
These conflicts between law and chaos take place in the ravaged America, and since gravity is going crazy, your heroes often fly wildly around. The gameplay becomes extremely fast because of this and also takes place vertically, as the enemy can swirl through the air in a gravitational whirlpool instead of just crawling on the ground.
LawBreakers currently has four hero classes, each providing an identical hero in terms of skills and weapons on each side. The choice between Law and Breakers is thus purely cosmetic:
- Enforcer: These fighters are all-rounders who fight with rifles, pistols, and rockets and set up support fields. These heroes are quite reminiscent of Soldier: 76 from Overwatch.
- Assassin: These heroes fight with shotguns and daggers, which they can also use as grappling hooks to reach otherwise inaccessible places. If the fast gameplay is still not fast enough, the assassin is the way to go.
- Titan: The hefty Titans are tanks and strongly resemble the heroine Zarya from Overwatch. They can handle electric beam weapons at close range, endure a lot, and can also trigger a gravitational bomb to hinder opponents. At range, they shoot with rocket launchers.
- Vanguard: Vanguards fly around with jetpack armor, shooting with Gatling guns and raining rockets. Reminds a bit of Pharah from Overwatch.
Two more classes, “Harrier” and “Wraith,” are yet to come. Just the class names suggest versions of Tracer and Reaper. All heroes are basically humans, but to better distinguish them, the developers have given each hero unique features, such as the leg prosthetics of Hellion or the mask with hanging cables of Chronos.
LawBreakers – Not an Overwatch Clone?
The mentioned heroes strongly resemble characters from Overwatch, but according to a quote from chief developer Cliff Bleszinski (on the site Gamespot), the game is supposed to differ enough from the competitor so that both games can coexist:
“Do you remember all the “Halo killers” that were supposed to come? Halo was never “killed”. […] it’s not about ‘killing’; it’s about coexistence. I play Battlefield and Call of Duty. I used to play Tekken and Street Fighter. There is enough room for two or three games at the top of a genre, and only after that do you fight for the leftovers.”
Bleszinski further noted: “People will understand LawBreakers when they have played it.” You have the opportunity to do so starting today, March 16th. The first closed beta starts at 5 PM our time and will last until March 20th at 5 AM. Bleszinski mentioned that they want to keep the beta very exclusive at first, similar to a newly opened club where everyone wants in, but there are only a few invitations available. Therefore, only alpha testers and about 50,000 new players are allowed in. However, there will be more beta phases to follow.
This is how you sign up for the beta: Just go to the LawBreakers website at the provided link and register. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work out this time. The developers want to hold more betas.
Also interesting: LawBreakers – Lessons from the Alpha
