It might sound like the beginning of a bad joke you might hear in a pub after a few drinks, but Capcom's upcoming third-person shooter, Dark Void, really is what you would end up with if you crossed 1991 film The Rocketeer with Gears of War and Halo 3, and blended them up with a healthy dose of space opera. Developer Airtight Games is behind the project, and there's a clear influence from their previous work on Crimson Skies.

Capcom recently ran us through an hour or so of the game on the Xbox 360, and while it may still need a bit of polish, it's shaping up as an interesting step in the evolution of the shooter genre. The game puts you in control of Wil Gray, a delivery dude who gets trapped in an alternate universe when he flies through the Bermuda Triangle. Exact details on the story are still being kept sketchy, so in place of actual details, we'll assume he was doing something awesomely exciting like delivering plastic lawn furniture or replenishing the depleted supplies of Street Fighter IV at your local games retailer.


Dark Void's third-person action and shooting mechanics are straight out of other games in the genre.

The alternate universe, dubbed "The Void", is similar to Earth, but it's not quite the same. The place is full of human survivors who have been marooned there over the years, and they share the space with a race called The Watchers. Our demo guide alluded to the fact that Watchers had been banished from Earth and that a tear in the ol' space-time continuum meant the two may come into contact again. Your job is to survive long enough to take out these bug-looking aliens and escape The Void with the other humans in tow.

The mission we checked out had you attempting to destroy a series of fixed anti-aircraft guns located on various rocky outcrops inside a canyon which were preventing your mothership from landing. Wil was decked out in a fancy looking thrust backpack with its own mounted machineguns, and our job was to lay down some firepower on the bad guys. The suit itself is fairly basic looking and didn't appear to offer too much protection against the obviously displeased targets tracking you through the air.
There's no ammunition or fuel management to worry about, but there is a short afterburner boost option (with an accompanying regeneration bar) available for those situations where you need to get the hell out of dodge in a hurry.

The environment was quite barren and was sparsely scattered with tall rock pillars which we were told can all be explored if you're so inclined. The game's draw distance seemed to be quite long, and while we could see rocky towers further away they were partially obscured by fog. Capcom is promising to give each of the game's six or seven zones a unique look and feel along with the assurance that you'll need to backtrack as you upgrade your skills and abilities to collect all items and complete the game's non-linear storyline.

If you can see it, you can explore it. That's Capcom's promise with Dark Void.

Watcher ships buzzed past overhead while we jetted around destroying AA guns, but zooming up to them and hitting the B button will cause you to grab hold and begin a "skyjack" boarding move. Once you're on the side of the vehicle you'll need to avoid the turret gunfire long enough to mash open a metal panel and gain access to the cabin. Once inside there's a minigame-style event that sees you needing to wiggle the analog stick from left to right rapidly to take control. Watcher sky vehicles weapons are a little more powerful than your pack ones, and there's the added bonus of giving you a thick metal shell to keep you safe from incoming fire, making you less susceptible to death.

Once you've destroyed all the AA guns your ship will be able to land safely and human troops spill out at the entrance to an underground hallway. Before you get any ideas about fanging Watcher aircraft through indoor areas, you won't be able to do it. Indoor areas are too small to accommodate the massive vehicles, so you'll have to go it on foot. That said, just because you're indoors doesn't mean you stop flying. On the contrary, you'll be able to use your jetpack everywhere you go, and in places it will be required to cross large gaps in walkways or get from point A to point B quickly. There is an associated risk of flying indoors though, and since the rooms are at times quite narrow our guide had their fair share of deaths with their face crushed up against walls and doors trying to show us it was possible.

On-foot third-person shooting mechanics in Dark Void are pretty standard fare. It's nothing too foreign if you've played an action game of the last few years, and you'll find the requisite cover mechanic and blindfire options are present and available. Watcher enemies looked a bit like Terminator T800 metal skeletons with space grubs inside. Killing them releases an insect-like high-pitched scream and allows you to follow up by chasing them down and stomping them with your boots with gooey results.

See the world, strap on a jetpack, kill some aliens.

Clearing a corridor of the little blighters allowed us to trade in our puny assault rifle for one of their more spacey guns and we picked up a weapon which fired energy bolts. This came in handy only moments later when we were presented with one of the game's minibosses. We dodged fire by hiding in alcoves along the hallway and returning fire at the big floating space enemy (which didn't look unlike Hakkar the Soulflayer from World of Warcraft's Zul'Gurub instance). Killing it rewarded us with a larger and more powerful weapon, but came with the unwelcome side effect of being too large and heavy to allow us to fly with it.

Killing bosses will release the game's experience currency, which at this stage is a series of red orbs which can be traded with nineteenth century inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla (who also just happens to live in the Void) for weapon and pack upgrades.

Vertical cover is one of the big new elements in Dark Void and will allow you to scale and cling as you climb up walls and objects. You'll be able to hop between accessible spots by hitting the X button when a prompt shows up on screen, or flip over and scale surfaces using the A button. We only saw it briefly, but it's looking like it will provide some interesting fire fights as you scramble to avoid gunfire.

An odd mix of backpack flight, third-person shooter, and space opera, Dark Void is still looking a bit rough around the edges, both in terms of visuals and gameplay, but we're interested to see how it shapes up as it prepares to propel itself onto the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC platforms later this year. Keep an eye out for more coverage on the title at this year's E3.