Former Halo and Battlefield developers have announced Scavengers, an upcoming third-person shooter that is trying to “blur the lines” between competition and cooperation, coining a new buzzword in the form of “co-opetition.” The new game will also fall within the survival shooter genre, though seems to offer something different from the likes of PUBG and Fortnite.
New studio Midwinter Entertainment is at the helm of the project, with the developer bringing in former 343 Industries staff with previous ties to the Call of Duty, Battlefield and Halo franchises. However, Scavengers appears to be an ambitious leap away from those FPS games, offering a multiplayer game that looks to seamlessly blend PvE with PvP combat, offering players the opportunity to interact peacefully or not-so-peacefully with other teams.
In an interview with GameInformer, Midwinter revealed details about the new game, including how the developer plans to orchestrate its matches. Unlike traditional survival shooters, in which players are tasked with continually collecting resources and living long enough to see the end of the game, Scavengers matches will be divided into three distinct sections. First, there’s a building phase, in which players hunt for resources and construct weapons in order to level up their characters. Then comes the hunting phase, with players taking on enemies and AI wildlife in order to complete their objectives. Finally, players are tasked with defending an area in order to extract their bounties.
These matches are expected to last up to 45 minutes, and unlike many PvP games in which shooting other players should be deemed the first course of action, it seems Midwinter wants to encourage players to willingly team up with their rivals. This is encouraged by the introduction of a hostile environment, with players forced to contend with its wintery surroundings and trio of AI enemy factions.
In a surprising bit of news, Midwinter is developing the game for the PC first and foremost, with console versions set to release after. There’s no concrete release date for the game yet, though 2018 is apparently out of the question, and little to go on outside of concept art and an announcement video, courtesy of Gematsu.
Watch the video below:
Scavengers certainly sounds interesting, and although we’re currently buried beneath a pile of survival games, it seems that Midwinter wants to do something different with the genre. Hopefully the game will live up to the talented studio’s lofty ambitions for it.
