Shattered Horizon Preview

More Gameplay and Thoughts

Naturally, because Shattered Horizon is a shooter, you’re probably going to want to know what kinds of weapons you’re likely to fire. The weapons we were shown during the demonstration were automatic rifles with scopes and also grenade launchers that had been adopted for use in space.

I asked Futuremark what the direction for the game was when it came to weaponry and although there were no real specifics on what we can expect, I was told the game will be sticking to weapons technology that is fairly similar to what’s available today. The Futuremark representatives were keen to make it clear that there won’t be any plasma guns, bio-rifles, lasers or anything else plucked out from science fiction.

As you would expect, the weapons can interact with the environment and explosions make great use of the physics engine, throwing boxes and objects out into space. One thing that wasn’t apparent though was whether or not players could be injured by flying objects; Futuremark said that most objects wouldn’t injure players, but there may be some that will – it’s all a matter of balance and I know it’d be frustrating to be continually killed by flying debris.


On that point, the developer also pointed out that some of the rocky debris would be destructible as well – those objects that are destructible will have a slightly different appearance. There wasn’t a demonstration of this in the build we saw, but Futuremark said that it was something the team was working on at the moment.

The health system will be pretty familiar to anyone who has played any recent sci-fi shooter, as the player’s suit is able to repair itself automatically if you can stay out of harm’s way. Interestingly though, your health and the suit’s health aren’t tied together linearly – your health won’t fully replenish when the suit is repairing itself. Because of this, you may encounter scenarios where your suit is badly damaged; you’ll know about this because you’ll hear a hissing sound in the background and there’ll be a warning displayed on your HUD.

Dying and watching others die in the game is quite fun too because of the nature of the zero-gravity environment, as you get pushed backwards from what looks to be the suit’s thrusters malfunctioning. When you’re the player dying, your screen will turn red as well, meaning you’ll see some nice red-tinted views of planet Earth as you float off into oblivion.


Unfortunately, this might get old over time, as there appears to only be one animation when an opposing player dies – the thrusters turn on and a lifeless carcass floats away. We’d like to see some more randomised movements to replicate what might happen when a high-tech suit like the one you’re wearing malfunctions – I’m sure that’s something Futuremark can work on in between now and the game’s release though.

On the whole then, Shattered Horizon has a lot of promise but I do have my concerns. One of the biggest is the potential barrier for entry created by the advanced and unique zero-gravity environments. There are some clever gameplay elements in Shattered Horizon, but my worry is that games like Enemy Territory: Quake Wars had some great ideas too – and we know what happened there.

I don’t think Shattered Horizon will fall at those same hurdles though and I hope that over the next twelve to eighteen months, Futuremark will play test the game to death – both internally and, more importantly, with third parties. As long as that happens, there is good potential for Futuremark Games Studio to bring something different to a market filled with run-of-the-mill shooters.