As a result of playing a frankly ludicrous amount of extraction shooters over the last few years, it now takes a lot for me to raise an eyebrow whenever a fresh one comes along. But Exoborne, the genre's latest newcomer which is about to kick off what promises to be a hectic playtest, clears the bar (and then some) for a few reasons.
Exoborne leans heavier on the movement side than most of its contemporaries, with players able to sprint, fly, and glide to their heart's content. The result looks like some sort of mash-up between Apex Legends and Escape From Tarkov, a phrase that in all likelihood will do more to pique your interest than anything else I can say.
But for me, Exoborne's unpredictable weather system is the biggest reason why its latest playtest, which ran until February 17, was so interesting. Due to the game's setting, which explores an apocalyptic United States that's been ravaged by weaponized weather, you run the risk of having your best-laid plans thrown into disarray by sudden tornados
That emergent angle is something I don't think enough extraction shooters have explored, which makes Exoborne all the more exciting. There's a base level of unpredictability that comes with shoving a bunch of players into a map already teeming with angry NPCs (in Exoborne, that includes robots), but very little before Exoborne has tried to push that pressure cooker further. I'm already picturing the potential: desperate firefights lit by muzzle flashes and lightning strikes, the latter of which hopefully fries a player on the enemy's squad and not mine. Almost giving up on getting to the extraction point and making it out with my loot, until an errant tornado flings me several hundred meters closer to freedom. Of course, these storms can just as easily throw your own plans into disarray – and knowing my luck they will – but that's still part of the fun. There are few opponents tougher than nature itself, which I would imagine makes for a uniquely scrappy underdog experience in even the neatest of matches.
Luckily, players will get a few fancy tools of their own to help even the odds. Exo-rig suits should allow every member of the squad to feel like they're being relied on for something –they're tactical platforms that can be modded, letting players choose their own playstyle. What that means will depend on whether you'd prefer to, say, engage with a powerful divebomb ability, or leech health from kills, or hover above the battlefield to rain death from above and feed intel back to your team by using the spotting dart mod for your Exo-rig. A lot of extraction shooters fall short of making preparation stages outside of a match feel consequential, so it's fantastic to see Exoborne so in-your-face with how much you can customize your playstyle. It's also hard to argue against the value of anything that lets you fling across an apocalypse like some sort of mechanically-enhanced Spider-Man, but as an added bonus, those Exo-rigs also seem to encourage an aggressive mix of ranged and melee combat, which means fighting with other squads should be absolutely wild.
That emphasis on staying agile is doubly neat because even if you'd rather not wade into fisticuffs-range and start punching, a brilliant movement system benefits every playstyle. Whether you're the sort of player to quietly pick through a raid and grab what you need with no fuss, the squad member who needs to blast every NPC in sight, or the wildcard whose entire life would be one constant PvP fight if they had their way, being able to slingshot around with a grappling hook – did I mention the Exo-rigs come with grappling hooks? – has its uses for every tactic. I'm not the most mechanically-gifted of the friends I play these sorts of games with, but I'm already rubbing my hands together at the cunning flanks and altogether sneaky plots this mobility will open the door for. Brains (and Exo-rigs) over brawn, eh?
There's a lot I haven't touched on – least of all being that an environmental apocalypse is a phenomenal setting – but Exoborne's emergent weather disasters and Exo-rigs are certainly enough to get me through the door for its initial playtest. I'm expecting it to be sheer chaos as every single player tries to work out how flying in a tornado is a viable strategy beyond following the rule of cool, but that's only going to crank up the fun.
But perhaps most importantly, Exoborne's pacing seems to blend of the breakneck scrappiness of battle royales and the tension that any extraction shooter worth its salt should have. I've never been able to find a game that neatly marries the merits of both genres, but Exoborne seems to have many of the tools needed to pull it off.
Exoborne's first playtest has just concluded, but keep an eye out on Steam for more news as it ramps up to launch.
