From the very first announcement of the cooperative shooter at E3 in 2018, 10 Chambers Collective - the creators of the recognized Payday series - managed to make a lot of confusion in the industry. The enigmatic trailer, the promising atmosphere straight from the Alien: Cameron's decisive clash and the gameplay, which was supposed to focus heavily on the team game, turned out to be a bull's eye, and there was a long queue of players waiting for production.
It quickly turned out, however, that only a team of few developers would have problems meeting the promised deadline. The premiere announced for the end of 2018 was moved to the famous Blizzard “when it will be”, and the initial craze of the fans hungry for demanding horror has slightly subsided. Only in 2019 it turned out that the ambitious plan of the Swedes has changed – GTFO (which translates into a charming Get the Fuck Out) was to debut at the end of the year on personal computers in the form of early access via the Steam platform. First, the alpha version tests, then stable code went into the world, and the game itself was made available to a wide audience in early December. Is it the perfect Christmas gift for fans of games with a dense atmosphere? Certainly – but not all of them.
Sweat, blood and tears
The content presented by the developers in the current version of the game is based on the so-called Rundown – a set of six mission expeditions, consisting in finding one or several items. As befits most online PvE, the plot is presented in a rudimentary form: we play the role of one of the convicts, who is sent down an industrial complex filled with mutated creatures to perform a specific task assigned by the warden … and that’s it. In truth, however, we do not need anything else to fully enjoy the production of 10 Chambers Collective, because the essence of GTFO is the gameplay itself. And this one aims to present the player as much challenge as possible and make him learn from his own death … pardon – mistakes.
Thus, the difficulty level of GTFO is very high. And so much so that calling it Dark Souls among cooperative FPPs is not a great exaggeration. Contrary to what you might have thought from the premiere trailer, GTFO is not a position dominating the market of multiplayer quick shooters, and even less a spiritual heir to Left 4 Dead . Here, firearms are used as a last resort, and the basic principle of survival is skillful sneaking in the dark between sleeping monsters and in the lion’s share of cases their methodical, silent elimination. Fans of games like Dishonored can therefore feel at home.
Even they will have a real nut to crack. While we start each of the expeditions relatively calmly, with lethargic enemies, we will soon find out that with the next missions the difficulty level increases rapidly, and when we try them alone, we will have to show remarkable coordination and focus on constant 100% level. Various types of enemies that we meet on our way require the use of individual tactics, but there is one principle – they react to movement, light and sound, and when taken from sleep they alarm the whole horde of others. Therefore, encountering a tight group of five adversaries in absolute darkness means a big problem.
Therefore, there is no need to cheat – you can play GTFO alone, but you have to harness your horse’s patience and self-denial with dozens of unsuccessful approaches. For this reason, as we have known for a long time, “before setting off on the road, you should assemble a team.”
One for all, all for one
In each of the expeditions, up to three other players can join us. However, anyone who would expect that with the full team everything becomes easy and pleasant would be wrong. Word has been said, GTFO focuses on close cooperation and communication of team members. It’s not even that less well-coordinated guns limit the firepower and the tactical approach of a group of opponents, but most of all – one individualist who likes the Rambo-style approach is enough to completely spoil the rest of the game. The margin of error in GTFOit is small, and the awakening of monsters ends up depleting the laboriously stored supplies – and in the best possible case. Usually, however, we will die, followed by the replay of the mission from the very beginning. And since single expeditions with no respawn points can stretch for two hours or more, such situations can bring the more nervous to the boil.
Sometimes, however, in the most well-coordinated team, everything goes to the head and a real hell begins, ending with a dramatic retreat to the chosen positions. Fortunately, the creators leave us with nothing for such occasions. Each player has at his disposal four types of deadly devices, roughly divided into medium-range rifles, contact weapons like shotguns (interchangeable with a ranged sniper rifle and a minigun ), additional tools in the form of turrets, proximity mines, enemy detectors or devices for covering piercing surface with hardening foam. The best friend of each convict, however, remains the “hammer” used for silent eliminations and even clashes.
Although it may not seem like much at first glance, with a team of four you can afford a whole host of combinations depending on your preferred tactics. The auxiliaries of our arsenal also include all disposable “collectibles”, such as health-regenerating first aid kits, ammunition sets, fog dispersers or glowsticks with different durability – the latter important insofar as their dim light does not awaken monsters. After all, the forceful approach is the last thing you should want in GTFO .
However, if it does happen and we manage to make one of such open confrontations (to which the creators at certain moments purposefully put on our way passages secured with alarm), we will have to wander around the rooms flooded with darkness in search of the designated item. Fortunately, also in this case, 10 Chambers Collective comes to us with a helping hand. We can use terminals scattered in subsequent locations, operated by typed commands, and a map on which we can draw to show our companions the way forward. Both are intuitive to use and designed to add even more immersion.
So if you’ve ever imagined playing online as a substitute for the SWAT squad, with full involvement of those interested, hacking electronics and, above all, with commands like: “left clean!”, “They go from behind!” and the like, there is a good chance that you will just fall in love with GTFO .
The ills of (?) Early access
From the above, it is quite clear that in order to get the maximum pleasure from it, four players should be involved in the GTFO . Here comes the first symptom of version 0.1 in which 10 Chambers Collective made the game available to us – no matchmaking and no built-in voice chat. Thus, to find people willing to play together, we have to use either the list of friends from Steam, or use the developers’ advice and look for comrades on the Discord server. For some people, the inability to thinklessly jump into a game with random people may be the thing that will decide to give up investing in the game, but it is worth looking at the problem from the other side.
First of all, the rather special, stealthy and somewhat ruthless nature of the production requires some responsibility of the team members, which is harder to count on when randomly selecting players. Secondly, considering how young the community is centered around the Swedish game, the need to engage in finding colleagues for a journey into the darkness can only help cement it.
If the above does not deter you, it is also worth mentioning that GTFO does not have any customization system at the momentand the development of characters or equipment, and the only reward for reaching the end of the map is a screen informing about the survived expedition. The lack of dedicated servers has been resolved here in such a way that one of the team members is the host – if he loses the Internet connection, we will have to return to the beginning of the task. Apart from that, however, the whole thing makes at least a positive impression. The code is stable and it is very rare to be thrown to the desktop, and the audiovisual setting, although not the most advanced in the world, is very stylish and does not sting the eyes. The lighting and character models in particular make a great impression – in the latter, we can see, for example, every weapon and type of equipment that he has with him. Like a detail, like a standard, but I’m happy.
ICT
The adventure is just beginning
It is obvious that the ambitious developers of 10 Chambers Collective still have a lot of work to do to bring GTFO to an ideal state. As the developers themselves claim, early access is expected to last about a year, during which further improvements will be introduced on an ongoing basis. Ultimately, the individual Rounds will appear in different, changing configurations, the game’s functions will include the aforementioned matchmaking , voice communication and reward systems for the better players.
Already in its current state, however, GTFO offers one of the most unique multiplayer experiences we have seen in the industry in years. So, if the creators’ promises are fulfilled, we can expect dozens, if not hundreds of hours of team sneaking in the dark. And of course, this type of gameplay will not appeal to everyone – but not everyone can become a special task person, right?
And some additional information:
– The official Polish GTFO community is concentrated here: https://discord.gg/FZERBge
– And you can find the author of the text under the nickname “Maciej_B”.
See you in the dark!
