The engines are warming up on the game Disintegration, the new shooter game from Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto and his relatively new studio V1 Interactive. The game is opening its doors to the wider public for the first time this week, with a closed technical beta starting Tuesday, January 28 and transitioning into a full open beta on January 31. Despite Disintegration being the first game from V1 Interactive, fans of Bungie’s Halo games and even current fans of Destiny 2 would be remiss to not pay attention to Disintegration.
That’s because Disintegration looks like an evolutionary mashup of some of Bungie’s best games of the past, including Halo and Myth, both game franchises that Lehto was involved in the development of from a top level during his long tenure at Bungie.
Disintegration is its own game, very separate from Bungie, and it is taking its own strides forward to define itself as a new kind of vehicle-based shooter with squad strategy elements so that's not to say fans should be expecting a clone. But many veterans of Bungie have joined Lehto at V1 Interactive including Lee Wilson, the story and cinematic lead on Halo: Reach, and Raj Nattam, an artist on both Halo and Destiny.
It won’t be long before players get their hands on the game themselves, but just looking at the footage, it is easy to see Lehto’s signature style stamped on the game as well as the first-person shooting and vehicle combat reminiscent of Halo, the strategy elements of Myth, and the squad-based narrative à la Halo: Reach. Not only that, but the game is set in a sci-fi universe, so by all accounts, the game is playing to all of its developer’s strengths. This means there's a lot of expectation on whether or not Disintegration will live up to its spiritual predecessors, and while the verdict is clearly still out, this beta could be the first step in realizing that.
The world of Disintegration focuses on a future earth where the human race was nearly pushed to extinction; however, scientists adopted a way to save humanity by removing the human brain and putting it into a robotic armature, a process called integration. This is where Disintegration gets its name. Fast forward decades in the story, and a group of these Integrated humans formed who have no desire to reverse the process. This antagonistic force, called the Rayonne, are on a mission to hunt down every last human and force them to go through integration. The players take on the role of Romer, a rebel Integrated who is out to protect humanity with a group of fellow outlaws with the hope to one day restore humanity to the way it was—to dis-integrate.
The full game will feature a full story campaign as well as multiplayer. However, the Disintegration technical betas this week will be focused on multiplayer only. The beta will allow players to choose from up to seven unique crews in two different modes and maps. Players haven't been able to sign up for the closed technical beta should note that Disintegration’s open beta will be obviously open to everyone.
Disintegration is set to release in 2020 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.