Outlaws & Legends » Vortex
Robin Hood is said to have taken from the rich and given to the poor. But what if he actually took from the rich and gave nothing to the poor? What if, on the other hand, you preferred to grease your pocket yourself and keep everything? Or maybe there wasn’t just one Robin… Maybe the Sherwood Forest was inhabited by other marauding gangs. If there were more similar bands, these outlaws did not have to rob only the Sheriff of Nottingham, but could compete for the royal treasury. And that’s exactly the premise of the new multiplayer game Hood: Outlaws & Legends from Sumo Newcastle and Focus Home Interactive. Extremely interesting in terms of theme and gameplay. However, as a result of the sin untouched.
At first glance, it’s a very imaginative and at its core fun cooperative PvPvE game, which may have decent variability, but bet all the cards in one mode.
In Hood: Outlaws & Legends, the focus is on a single mode. This in itself is a rather bold decision that developers can get away with. Two competing groups of four, made up of live players, strive for just five maps of prey in the form of treasure. It is guarded not only by ordinary enemies controlled by artificial intelligence, but above all by the dreaded sheriff, who can only be excluded from combat for a while and otherwise poses a constant threat of instant death. Fortunately, after your death, you can resume in a few seconds. And if you capture key points on the map, you don’t even have to travel too far. First of all, you have to track down the sheriff himself, not just avoid him, even if he poses a similar threat as Mr. X from the Resident Evil series that inspired him. Your first task is to take the sheriff’s key from the treasury, where you will find a chest of gold. When one of the teams seizes the keys, he gets an indication of where to look for the treasure. The exact door must be traced, picked up the chest, run with it to one of the predetermined escape points and transfer the treasure as quickly as possible using a simple manual mechanism.
The joke is that in any of these moments, you are constantly confronted with enemies that control AI. You can run into the sheriff again at any time. And your escape and the whole plan can also be ruined by an enemy gang, which will attack at the right moment. Opponents will let you do dirty work and lick cream. It’s up to you whether you try to sneak in, eliminate enemies in secret and not raise an alarm, or make as much riot as possible and escape in the confusion. Opponents can do everything possible, attract the attention of artificial intelligence to the opponent, intentionally raise an alarm or close the main access roads. At first glance, it’s a very imaginative and at its core fun cooperative PvPvE game, which may have decent variability, but bet all the cards in one mode. And this is obviously very difficult, if not impossible, to balance properly.
For example, the big problem is that developers don’t restrict the characters you enter the game with. Not only are there two potentially identical teams on both sides, made up of identical characters, but the players themselves sabotage the variability and balance by allowing you to enter the game with several identical characters in one party. At the same time, the game literally calls for each hero to be unique and their diverse qualities and specializations to complement each other. Individual members of the gang use various weapons, specialties, tactics and special abilities. There is no point in describing them at length in the review area, but the important thing is that the diverse group that has just been coordinated is prepared for all the dangers, risks and situations that could potentially arise. If you don’t have all the heroes, sooner or later you will miss something or someone. Even more than other similar games, Hood is extremely dependent on the people you play with, because the developers can’t automatically motivate players to play correctly with rules and mechanisms. The creeping action easily turns into a festival of killing and chasing kills, which, however, lead nowhere. And obviously some characters benefit from it at the expense of others. For example, those defensive who have abilities that are harder to apply in an open skirmish.
But when you play with friends or fall for the right party, you will have a very pleasant gameplay. The rules are not complicated at all, the action is relatively straightforward, but the richness of the game can result from how variable the individual matches are, albeit in very similar scenery. Although only one team declares the winner at the end of the fight, in reality, both may have some loot. The whole loot is divided only in the last dramatic phase, and even if you do not bring the theft of the treasury to the full final, you may still have at least some part left. At the end, each player divides his part between himself and the people as in the original legend. It’s up to you to choose the ratio. Money for the poor will pave the way for new weapons, clothing and abilities. But in order to buy them, you must have some gold left. You are still looking for a balance between accumulating gold and judiciously distributing it. On the other hand, it should be noted that the equipment is only cosmetic in nature, with the exception of perks, which will give you access or improve some skills. For each of the characters, everything is unlocked separately and each also levels independently, regardless of your overall level.
The hood is not sold at full price, but at about half the standard. The publisher already says in a fair way that this is not a big AAA game.
At its best, Hood really resembles a more complex multiplayer variation in the Assassin’s Creed series. It can be a real cooperative-competitive stealth event that offers a specific challenge, rewards teamwork and does not get bored after a few games despite the title lacking in content. Although the developers honestly planned the season pass for the year ahead, it cannot be overlooked that it is not the gameplay but the arenas and characters that will be exhausted, just like recently with the multiplayer car event Destruction AllStars. Here, too, you feel that the clothes don’t really matter and don’t change the appearance of the characters dramatically. You have no reason to pursue it. It’s similar with weapons. And the individual maps are nice, but even though the developers tried to be varied and differently planted, in action, despite the different topography and architecture, you actually play in a very similar way. There is not much reason to change strategy. But even that wouldn’t have to break Hood’s neck, God knows what will come out of the game in a year, if the authors pay attention to it.
The problem is that in practice, the community is more likely to cough and close combat is not only not balanced, but it is not very fun. The authors either underestimated him or did not realize that fans do not have to play by the rules. The result often looks unintentionally comical, because the community has already invented all sorts of tricks and detours that do not look nice, but are effective. Logically, this raises the question of whether there are any mitigating circumstances. And indeed, yes. Hood is not sold for the full price in the first place, but for about half the standard. The publisher already says in a fair way that this is not a big AAA game. The local world has an interesting atmosphere and excellent styling. Even though the title isn’t bad in terms of graphics, thanks to Epic’s Unreal Engine, it’s the architecture, the environment, the dark and violent Middle Ages that appealed to me by far the most in addition to the central idea. It’s such an impressive and unique backdrop that I regretted that it didn’t also serve as a single player.
By far the most intriguing thing was how the artists mixed facts and fiction in this respect. According to them, the developers deliberately unleashed their imagination and did not allow themselves to be bound by history. Therefore, you will not come across real places here, and the characters do not have full names. The authors were, of course, inspired by the legend of Robin Hood, but the region is much more sinister, and fictional castles and fortresses inspired by brutalism are only intended to intensify the feeling that you are opposed to a cruel authoritarian regime that ruthlessly oppresses its subjects. Unfortunately, the technical side also falters in places. After the end of the match and return to the camp, you sometimes continue to hear voice chat games that you no longer participate in. You will also encounter bugs and bugs. The context buttons belonging to the keyboard peeked at me several times as I distributed the loot, even though I played on PlayStation 5. And artificial intelligence combined with animations sometimes terminates service, and enemy soldiers simply behave confused.
Although I had a pretty good time with Hood most of the time, I must point out that this is not a very good game. But that may not be out of the question. If you feel that this idea and topic appeals to you, you may be willing to spend many hours in it. The problem is that the whole looks unfinished and untuned despite the nice lower price tag. Given the fun, albeit unbalanced gameplay, I would be willing to reach for a higher mark. If, however, the title bothered either just a lack of content, or, conversely, only some errors in execution and design. At the same time, however, despite other mitigating circumstances, both mean too much compromise to result in more than a slightly above-average game.
