NCORE Preview. The new PvPvE shooter from Astrum Entertainment — what's good and what are the issues

Editor-in-chief Rodion Ilin just attended a closed gameplay session of NCORE, a free PvPvE shooter about gladiators on high-tech floating arenas called Hexadromes. Here are his "on-the-go" impressions.

The mechanics are simple, yet at the same time, the developers have tried to invent something new: players are tasked with flying between floating hexagonal tiles, collecting coins, and then dragging them to one of the hexagons to "deposit" them there. In the game, you can and should literally reach the edges of the map to jump out and fly to the next one. A total of 8 teams, each consisting of 3 players, participate in the match. There are no other game modes yet.

— Various settings within a single game: battlefields of World War I, the Middle Ages, a zombie apocalypse in modern USA;

— No Pay-to-Win, only cosmetics will be sold;

— An interesting idea with floating hexagon arenas — within a single match, you find yourself on maps with different architecture, design, and even settings: from trailer parks to factory hangars and just city streets;

— Weapons have a standard mode and a melee mode: for example, a firearm transforms into a spiked mace, and you can hit an opponent on the head with it (if they don't shoot you from a distance first);

— On certain hexagons, there are additional activities to entertain yourself besides collecting coins and shooting everything that moves;

— The game is being developed entirely by Astrum Entertainment, it's not another adaptation of a Chinese game for the European (Russian) market;

— Looks beautiful: it's based on the Unreal Engine 5.

— Those very flights from one floating hexagon map to another somewhat slow down the gameplay, moving on a glider ("floating skateboard") is quite leisurely;

— The task for gamers is to collect coins and deliver them to the deposit point, but the problem is that this place is constantly unclear, all players got confused about where to run/which hexagon map to fly to;

— Bugs: the game crashed to the desktop for Rodion, and for a teammate, it froze completely;

— Often you end up on a hexagon map where there is no one except mobs, and it's hard to determine this in advance;

— There will be no classic game modes at launch;

— No general voice chat, only team chat;

— Initially, only three characters to choose from, all without special features;

— The striking girl from the presentation art is not a default character but a paid skin.

***

Those who are tired of Warface might soon get a decent alternative. Fingers crossed for Astrum. The release is this year.