Who right here remembers Geneshift? These with a love of traditional, top-down Grand Theft Auto seemingly do. Launched all the way in which again in 2017, the multiplayer battle royale sport modified its title a number of years in the past to Gene Shift Auto, in order that it might put on its inspiration on its sleeve. Nonetheless, it is now determined to alter guises but once more – and it is ditching any form of GTA reference or homage. Gene Shift Auto is now Skillshot Metropolis.
When it first dropped as Geneshift, it was one of many weirdest multiplayer video games round – a top-down, city crime sport impressed by GTA 2, however with a League of Legends-esque gameplay loop the place you’d progressively stage up characters by looting and killing opponents throughout a match. It was launched with an array of multiplayer modes, however lately (and following its title change to Gene Shift Metropolis) it is a free Steam sport that performs extra like a battle royale. Mechanically, it is nonetheless very related – you shoot enemies, drive automobiles round a metropolis, and improve your character’s MOBA-like expertise all through the course of a match – nevertheless it’s extra oriented round being the final participant or workforce standing.
With it being a free multiplayer sport, solo dev Ben ‘bencelot’ Johnson has now rebranded it to Skillshot Metropolis to “appeal to the proper of gamers,” somewhat than these pondering they have been diving right into a traditional GTA clone.
“The unique title was chosen as a result of Gene Shift Auto sounded loads like Grand Theft Auto,” he writes in a submit saying the title change. “This sport does in spite of everything have cops, missions, automobiles, gangsters and extra – and every time I might submit the sport on-line probably the most upvoted remark was all the time, with out fail, one thing like ‘omg, this sport seems identical to GTA2!’ So I took that as an excellent signal that GTA was the primary promoting level and one thing to base the title on.”
“As a substitute, we would like a reputation that draws high-skill PvP followers,” he provides. “Followers who like creating combos, getting flashy kills, mastering their construct, and outplaying enemies. That is the place the replayability of the sport lies – not the cops and missions. That is what retains you taking part in 100+ matches as you unlock and uncover 1000’s of latest and damaged combos.”
Aside from that one time it was flooded by bots looking for Steam Buying and selling Playing cards earlier than its everlasting F2P swap, the sport’s by no means boasted huge participant counts. Nonetheless, it is hoped that the rebrand will carry some new gamers to Skillshot Metropolis as bencelot ramps up in direction of 1.0 – extremely, regardless of being out for eight years, it is nonetheless technically in early entry.
So, a sport now on its third official title, that is free-to-play, and that mixes old fashioned GTA with LoL – Skillshot Metropolis actually is an anomaly. If you wish to give it a go, you possibly can add it to your Steam library free of charge proper right here.
For extra, try our lists of one of the best multiplayer video games and one of the best crime video games.
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