Sharkmob have punched the green light, cracked open the hangar doors and launched a public playtest for their windblown open world extraction shooter Exoborne, which I would gingerly summarise as Anthem meets Just Cause with a touch of PUBG. From today till 17th February at 1pm GMT, 2pm CET, or 5am PST, you’ll be able to get your fill of mech-o-looting via Steam. Here’s a trailer’s worth of wiggly whooshes, big bangs and exowotsits to celebrate. Mmm, exowotsits. They used to be 25p a bag in the 1990s.
If references to antique British crisp brands only leave you confused about what Exoborne actually is, may I recommend reading my first article about the game from 2023. The narrative premise is that a notional “save the environment” project called Project Rebirth has fucked the world instead, producing a landscape of renegade whirlwinds, broken cities, big sci-fi towers and lashings of loot.
You are a “Reborn” adventurer in an exosuit with high-jumping and grappling capabilities, plus a parachute. Your job is to get in, finish quests and extract with some rad valuables before the match timer runs out, while fighting other players and NPCs. The game is built for groups of three, with a choice of exo-rigs akin to RPG classes, and there’s a home hub area where you can shoot the breeze with various story characters. Hah, “shoot the breeze”! I guess that also applies to tangling with inclement weather phenomena as well: some of the game’s better items are to be found inside them.
I’m not sure about Exoborne so far. The idea of hook-chuting through hurricanes while gunning down robot-shouldered hooligans certainly has its charms. On the other hand, this all feels very “we smooshed a bunch of genres together in the hope of alchemising something new”, and the art direction is a bit dreary. There’s no release date yet – let us know if you have thoughts about the beta.
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