Disintegration went into beta this week, with the open portion just opening up to the public today. The game is the new shooter from Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto's new studio V1 interactive. Disintegration is a mix of ideas that is hard to map onto even one genre, but it is certainly nothing like any Bungie game that has came before it, especially Destiny 2.
The gameplay of Disintegration is more of a MOBA like Dota 2 or League of Legends than it is a looter game like Destiny. In a similar fashion to what Overwatch did, it takes integral strategic elements from this genre and mixes it with a first-person shooter. As such, Disintegration is more like Overwatch than it is like any other shooter.
Disintegration's technical closed beta was live this week, and the game was limited to only a couple of its multiplayer offerings. Players could only select quick play option which loads them up into a 5v5 game of either Retrieval, a three flag capture the flag inspired mode; Zone Control, a basic King of the Hill scenario; and Collector, a mode that requires players to defeat enemies and pick up cans to win. Of these modes, Retrieval was the one that was selected most often.
The moment-to-moment action consists of players controlling a hovering GravCycle while controlling a squad of two to four solider units, each with their own abilities, depending on which crew is chosen. This perspective allows the player to be above the battlefield and find targets on the ground while also having to deal with enemy player units in air battles. Each player needs to choose a crew, which is Disintegration's equivalent of the classes and characters from RTS inspired shooters and multiplayer games. This is where the direct comparison to Overwatch begins to enter the conversation.
Each crew has its own aesthetic inspired by a historical or contemporary style. They range from Samurai themed Lost Ronin, whose Grav Cycle uses a lock-on rocket launcher and controls a crew of powerful damage dealers, to the Medieval inspired King's Guard who wields a cyber crossbow. In the end, though, every crew has a gun, usually two, and at least two squadmates with abilities on a cool down. It ends up being a lot more symmetrical in terms of abilities than Overwatch or even the standard MOBA.
Early favorites include the Neon Demons, a cyberpunk '80s inspired class with a killer plasma assault rifle that is one of the best primary weapons in the game. The Business are also an extremely solid crew and are probably the best place for a beginner to start. With a basic machine gun for its primary and a charged burst shotgun for a great secondary, it is one of the most balanced crews out the gate. Seven were selectable in the beta, but V1 Interactive is saving two more until the game's launch.
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The way each of these crews has so many different abilities that truly can work together is where moments of that Overwatch brilliance begin to shine in the matches. In the middle of that crucial push for the zone, when one player pops down a bubble shield and another deploys its healing ability and everything just works out to ensure a victory, that is what Disintegration is going for. It wants players to have those type of nail-biting moments that the synergies in Overwatch are so good at consistently providing in matches.
Of course, the game is still early and beta players first need to get used to the gameplay quirks that make Disintegration weirdly unlike any other multiplayer shooter. Hopefully, more of the meta game of team composition comes out as the unusual controls, especially on console, become more second nature to players. Like Dota 2 and Overwatch, and notably unlike Bungie games like Halo, the game feels more at home on a PC.
The PC version of Destiny 2 may be where the most serious players are active, but the game is designed from the ground up to feel good on a controller. Disintegration has so much going on controls-wise that it feels more like a PC game in both its game-feel and its design inspiration.
The way enemy crews are integrated act like creeps in a MOBA, enemies that exist to be killed and earn players experience. However, there is no in-game meta economy on a per match basis. In this way, the creeps are used similarly to how they were in Respawn's Titanfall 2, a game whose mechanics laid the groundwork for the critical acclaim that befell Apex Legends last year.
The game has a design to it, like Overwatch, that creates different specific chokepoints on each map that frequently become a contested area. In the Zone Control mode, these are designated by the zones, but in Retrieval. these are created organically. Somewhere between the core, the attacking team needs to deliver to score and the zone they need to deliver it to, a natural point of contention occurs. This is where the game feels most like Overwatch, when two teams are duking it out for minutes of tense action that may ultimately decide the fate of the match.
It is still completely unknown what the single player campaign mode will look like in Disintegration. This could tips the scales in the direction that draws more comparison to Bungie's modern work. These crews could be incorporated into a level-based campaign, but any chance of the game tapping into the character loot and customization depth of a Destiny seems unlikely. The real question is ultimate how this campaign plays out.
Disintegration is set to release in 2020 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.