Shattered Horizon Hands-On Impressions

Shattered Horizon is an intriguing online shooter that seems poised to grab attention, not because of what it adds to the genre, but for what it takes away. Set in space after a mining disaster on the moon has sent rock fragments big and small across the galaxy, its gameplay is entirely zero-gravity. Without gravity to hold you down, players are free to use jetpacks to cruise around each of the game's maps. Every surface you can see is fair game, and your ability to boost from one location to another in a hurry adds an entirely new dimension to the typical online shooter match. After first getting our hands on Shattered Horizon last year, we recently took a second spin through an updated build just before the game arrives on the PC later this year.

The idea of floating through space in a zero-gravity setting seems like a game you would need 30 fingers and 12 joysticks to play, but the controls in Shattered Horizon are remarkably easy to grasp. When on a surface, it follows the same WASD and mouse setup as every other shooter out there, but if you hit the space bar, you'll not just jump, but float upward for as long as you hold the button down. Hitting shift lowers you downward, and if you're close enough to the surface below you, the game is smart enough to attach you to it as if your boots had some sticky substance on them. When in the air, you can combine the basics of WASD movement with the space bar to essentially fly freely about the world, and if you're in a hurry, you can hit the C key to trigger a jetpack boost to temporarily cruise along at a much faster speed.

Once you get those controls down--and trust us, we did that in a surprisingly short amount of time--you can add to your astronaut acrobatics in a few other ways. If you're floating through space and you want to rotate your vision, you can hold the right mouse button and move the mouse side-to-side to rotate your body around and turn what was just upside down to right side up. And in a move that should feel familiar to anyone who played Dead Space, you can quick jump to nearby objects and surfaces by hitting F when a special icon appears below your reticle. This basically springs you right to that object while reorienting you so that you land feetfirst. This control scheme sounds a little complicated, but in our experience it works very well--we got the hang of it in a short amount of time and really enjoyed the mind-bending freedom of movement it offered.

We got to play on the International Space Station map in a game mode that required one team to take control of three capture points in order to win. A few things grabbed our attention about the map: the giant image of Earth on one end of the map to help orient players, the bright bursts of starlight aided by the game's (required) use of DirectX 10, and the floating bits of rock and shipping containers that can actually be pushed around by players. There were also a number of tunnels inside the structure of the space station to help go along with the exposed space outside.

The default weapon is a run-of-the-mill assault rifle that feels fairly solid and has its ammo counter built straight onto it to help keep the heads-up display clean. However, it's the only gun in the entire game, which is something that's going to disappoint a lot of people. What helps offset that limitation is that you spawn with three different tactical grenades. There's the EMP, which messes with a player's electronics by removing their reticle, restricting their movement, and disabling their audio; the MPR grenade, which emits a shock wave that propels away any players close to it like a hand shooing a fly; and the ICE grenade, which sends out droplets of water that are instantly frozen in space to help restrict the movement and vision of nearby enemies. You'll throw these different distances depending on how long you hold the E button--just don't render yourself useless by accidentally tapping E with the EMP grenade equipped like we did.

We played with only one other player just to get a grasp of the controls, but the full game will support 32 players. That number should make for some pretty intense matches. Not only will you die instantly from being shot in the visor, but you'll also die in a mini-explosion when someone shoots your fuel-filled jetpack. With bullets from 32 players zipping all around, things should be pretty interesting when you jump into a full server. You can expect to see Shattered Horizon arrive at a less-than-full price (remember, it's multiplayer-only) when it's released on digital distribution methods like Steam later this year.