New World Interactive has been busy working on their upcoming military shooter, Insurgency: Sandstorm. It?s a realistic, squad-based first-person shooter, with a heavy emphasis on maintaining a believable ambiance and the intensity of the battlefield that rarely relents. PlayStation LifeStyle managed to go hands-on with an early build of the game at Focus Home Interactive?s recent Le What?s Next De Focus event in Paris, France, and have our impressions ready for you below.
A Storied History
Insurgency: Sandstorm is a sequel to Insurgency, which is itself a sequel to a Source mod called Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat. So this marks the first time that the series will appear on consoles. First-person shooters are a natural fit on consoles, of course, so the transition should be relatively painless. We played our demo on beefed-up PCs, but the interface (or rather lack thereof) wasn?t too complicated and should be easily navigable with a controller. The Unreal Engine 4 powers the experience in Insurgency: Sandstorm. Beyond allowing for easier and more reliable ports to consoles than a custom engine, this is also the first entry to shift away from Valve?s Source engine. The build shown to us included plenty of detail in the desert landscape we found ourselves placed in, solid lighting effects, and all the dust and grime that one would expect to see in such an environment.
Audio is something that can be easily overlooked when thinking about a shooter, but New World Interact...