Thankfully, there are some games that we’ve seen in recent years that have managed to apply the tenants of Left 4 Dead, but with their own style and nuances, making them feel familiar and fresh at the same time. It gives me no pleasure to say that Earthfall isn’t quite one of those. It’s not a bad game, as it does go by the Left 4 Dead rule book closely enough to never fail too hard, but the price Earthfall pays for that safety net is ultimately far greater than the reward.

While Earthfall does occasionally offer moments of genuine fun, those moments feel more like short glimpses than sustained experiences due a very bland setup and some annoying issues that just didn’t need to be there. The price being at 30 bucks definitely makes me want to cut it some slack, but at the same time, if a game has issues, those issues don’t cease being issues just because the game is cheaper. So while I do appreciate the reduced price for this game, and I do factor that in, I just can’t bring myself to just overlook all of Earthfall’s flaws, and neither should you.

"If you want a true evolution to the genre of which Earthfall is a part, you’re better off spending your money on something else, but if you just want something to goof around in with your friends while shooting aliens, hey, maybe this works for you, just don’t expect a whole lot more than that."

Right off the bat, you will notice the dated graphics and overall presentation looking like something that came from the better part of a decade ago. Along with the fact that the sound effects are mostlypretty  underwhelming and make most of the guns sound like toys, this cleary isn’t a game that intends to compete with others of the same genre on presentation. Okay then, online cooperative games don’t necessarily need great graphics and sound design to be effectively fun to play. So how is the gameplay overall? Well again, its generally just nothing special. The mechanics and tasks your team is charged with are all pretty much a carbon copy of Left 4 Dead, so while they are functional, and do give just enough motivation to keep you and your team moving around, it’s just another area that I feel like Earthfall surrenders to mediocrity far too easily, and really could have benefited from just a few more molecules of originality.

On top of that, there are several small irritants that drag down an already demonstrably ordinary-at-best experience including but no limited to iron sights on most guns giving you no zoom benefits whatsoever making that perspective essentially pointless, a completely senseless hit-marker system that clouds your sights needlessly, and the fact that the several types of aliens that can instantly incapacitate you indefinitely, leave you no individual recourse and essentially no time to defend yourself before they get to you if you don’t happen to spot them as soon as they enter the environment. Granted these things don’t ruin the game on their own, they just add to a picture of a game that seems to illustrate an experience where its much harder to find cool things about Earthfall that make it memorable and fun than it is to notice the things that are either less than acceptable or just barely so.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t fun times to be had here, though. The holdout sections and swarms can be a blast when your team is engaged and working together while the soundtrack swells to some lively climaxes. Even though I would have appreciated many more of them, there are a few moments where the repetitive tasks are traded in for some slightly more original set pieces that do mix things up a bit, and even though these moments are incredibly rare and pretty short, they were a noticeable step in the right direction for the game. Weapon printers were also a nice touch and came in handy right when you would expect them to.

"While Earthfall will not be joining Killing Floor or Vermintide in the upper echelon of first person online cooperate experiences, and there are many older and cheaper games that still bring more to the table, the fundamentals of this style of game are more or less here, and depending on what you want to get out of a game like this, at 30 bucks, the sometimes brainless tasks and unbalanced moments might not bother you."

I also appreciated the heavy weapons that could be picked up at the expense of speed, yet would deal quite a bit of damage to quite a bit of aliens. Speaking of the aliens, they are largely designed well in my opinion and I found the bigger ones in particular to be pretty fun to fight alongside an engaged team, and their presence in the enemy line-up amounted to a nice way to mix up the pacing of the levels. I also enjoyed relocating turrets and propane tanks at my discretion before one of the holdout sections to add to my teams advantage. These are small things, but they are also important little twists that do keep the game from being just a complete copy and paste of the games that inspired it, so they do matter and they do have a positive impact on the overall experience.

While Earthfall will not be joining Killing Floor or Vermintide in the upper echelon of first person online cooperate experiences, and there are many older and cheaper games that still bring more to the table, the fundamentals of this style of game are more or less here, and depending on what you want to get out of a game like this, at 30 bucks, the sometimes brainless tasks and unbalanced moments might not bother you. It’s the kind of game where each player’s mileage might vary. It’s not definitively awful or great, for most, it’s probably somewhere in between.

How much it leans toward either side is going to largely depend on your individual tastes. If you want a true evolution to the genre of which Earthfall is a part, you’re better off spending your money on something else, but if you just want something to goof around in with your friends while shooting aliens, hey, maybe this works for you, just don’t expect a whole lot more than that. When Earthfall decides to toe the line of it’s genre and play it safe, it does so in a satisfactory way and shows us the enduring nature of the pillars of the basic online co-operative shooter structure that continue to stand the test of time. It’s just a shame that Earthfall almost never does anything more than that, and, at times, even dips below its own standards.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Earthfall has officially landed on Xbox One, PC and PS4, with players around the world now enjoying the co-op shooter with their friends, frying some aliens. In celebration of the arrival of their baby, Holospark have put out a brand new launch trailer.

The brief trailer wears the heavy Left 4 Dead inspiration, which is, of course, also worn by the game on its sleeve. The fun character design and great lighting mesh with lots of eye catching action that tease a bit of what players should expect from the title. While there’s very little gameplay to be found in this trailer, the game being out means you can find that easily enough.

Holospark recently revealed that the PS4 Pro version of the game actually has a small, brief advantage over the Xbox One X version. On any platform, any content updates will come to the game free of charge, as opposed to DLC for so many games post-launch that usually splits the player base (kind of like what Black Ops 4 will be doing). Earthfall is available now for PS4, PC and Xbox One.

Are you ready to shoot some space bugs with some buds? Holospark sure hopes you are with their co-op shooter Earthfall set to launch on PC, PS4 and Xbox One very, very soon. WCCFtech interviewed the team to inquire about, among other things, how the game fares on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. But unlike how this story usually goes, the PS4 Pro walks away with the win for once.

According to the answer given by the team, both PS4 Pro and Xbox One X players will enjoy 4K visuals at 30 frames per second. However, only PS4 Pro owners will have HDR support at launch, coming to Microsoft’s system via a post-launch update. Quite a plot twist, with this story usually swinging wildly in Xbox One X’s favour.

PC players will of course, enjoy the game at whatever resolution and frame rate their battle stations can manage. As far as the minimum and recommended specs for Windows gamers, we’ve included the relatively modest requirements (besides SDD recommendations) just below. If you’re stuck waiting for the game to launch and just can’t wait, maybe our interview will tide you over.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Earthfall, the sci-fi co-op shooter under development at Holospark and one of their first major titles, finally has a launch date. Up to four players can get together to take on some alien bugs on PS4, Xbox One or PC this summer on July 13th, with Gearbox handling retail publishing duties.

The game has been available in an early access state on PC for over a year, where the team was able to work on the game and take real time feedback as they did so. User reviews have remained fairly positive on the game, meaning the official release should be fine.

The game will cost $30, and include ten missions and two campaigns for players to take on together within the Pacific Northwest setting. A deluxe edition will launch the same day for $10 more and bundle in a cosmetics pack for players who spend the money. Are you going to check out Earthfall? Let us know in the comments below.

To learn more about the game, Gamingbolt reached out to Holospark’s Collin Moore with the following questions.

"Our goal wasn’t for players to build huge structures, but to tactically deploy defenses that are the key to survival while playing Earthfall, especially in the heat of the battle."

Does the game have a fully fleshed out single-player campaign or is the focus primarily on co-op gameplay?

We think of them as one in the same. Our primary focus was making great missions that involve teamwork where each levels provides another clue on what is going on in the story of the game. Each level is fleshed out in a way that you will have fun if you play co-op with friends or a lonewolf.

What can you tell us about the different alien types in the game?

We have seven major types of aliens. Some of them are intended to swarm you from multiple directions, requiring your group to cover each others back, while others will hunt stragglers and take them down unless they’re saved by another member of your group. There are still others that are big combat monsters, where you all have to use the battlefield, concentrate fire, and try to take them down.

Defense construction is something we’ve seen in games like Fortnite. Will this feature function similarly in this game or will there be some fundamental differences?

Our goal wasn’t for players to build huge structures, but to tactically deploy defenses that are the key to survival while playing Earthfall, especially in the heat of the battle. Those extra couple seconds to heal yourself, a teammate or to reload can be life or death, which we really feel it adds to the game and separates us from other titles.

Were there any particular challenges you faced during the game’s development?

Keeping focus was a huge challenge early in development. Being a new studio, we had tons of ideas of what type of game we were going to make. When we started making progress on a co-op experience, it was hard to say no to “wouldn’t it be cool if” after a playtest if it didn’t fit.

What were some of the inspirations behind this game?

We have tons of influences from movies Alien and Aliens, Independence Day, Starship Troopers, but Left 4 Dead, is our biggest influence. We’re huge fans of the series, with some of us having put hundreds of hours into it, but it’s been almost a decade since the last game was released. We loved co-op games and felt that someone needed to make a version using modern technology like Unreal Engine 4 and add in features that have become standard such as ADS (aim down sights) into a great co-op experience.

"For a co-op shooter, we actually have a very extensive story about what the aliens are doing, why they’re here, and what they are."

When is the game set to leave Early Access?

We’ll be launching in late Spring with the full release on Steam, PS4, and Xbox One.

How important has player feedback been in getting the game to its current state?

Feedback has been key throughout development, both active and passive. We read every comment on our Steam forums and look at what we can do to address a problem or take a suggestion from the community. We have also monitored the data from playthroughs to see where users are getting stuck, dying at a higher frequency, what guns they are using and what they aren’t. It has been immensely helpful having the communities input on the game and helping it get the game to its current state.

What can you tell us about the story of the game?

The story of Earthfall is of an alien infestation on Earth. Communications have been disrupted, alien creatures are swarming the countryside attacking people, and a few brave souls have stepped up to try and take the fight to the aliens and preserve what’s left of humanity.

For a co-op shooter, we actually have a very extensive story about what the aliens are doing, why they’re here, and what they are. We also have a Lore system that players can unlock that will explain what’s happened up till now, how some of our technologies work, and some insight into what it’s like trying to stay alive while being hunted by the aliens.

We also reveal story in our gameplay. Some missions have environmental clues that explain and foreshadow things that will happen later in the game. Some missions, particularly the campaign finales, will have big reveals of what’s going on.

Earthfall is an action game, so you can ignore all of that, but if you keep your eyes open, you’ll learn some interesting things.

Can you tell us about the idea of printing weapons and how this feature works in the game?

3D printers become more sophisticated and fast every year, and our game is set a few decades in the future when they’re more ubiquitous and able to print a wide range of items. When you find a 3D printer in the game, you can turn it on and print any of the weapons it offers as many times as you want, making it a great rallying point.

Why 3D printers can print weapons, how they still function after the EMP that accompanies the first Earthfall, and why they have different items for different printers is something you can discover in our Lore system as you play the game!

What is your take on the recent trend of Games as a service model and the possible controversial monetization practices arising from it?

We have a number of people that have worked on MMOs and F2P games, and when it’s done right in a free-to-play can be a great experience for players. But for a title to really be a great experience as F2P it needs to be built from the ground up as a F2P title. With Earthfall our focus from the start was to make a great premium co-op game.

" Our focus right now is on the release for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 this Spring, but we LOVE Switch and we feel Earthfall would be a great game on it!"

The current generation of consoles will probably end in the next couple of years. What is your biggest expectation from the next PlayStation and Xbox?

With Sony and Microsoft expanding the line with PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, we might just see continual evolution in the line rather than completely new boxes and architecture. We can see both follow a similar formula that Apple has with cell phones.

Any chance of a Switch version of the game?

Our focus right now is on the release for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 this Spring, but we LOVE Switch and we feel Earthfall would be a great game on it! If Switch fans want Earthfall they should make their voices heard to us and Nintendo!

Is there anything more you’d like to tell our readers?

We are very excited for the upcoming release of Earthfall. Over the last couple weeks watching people play at PAX East and EGX Rezzed and people starting to stream on Twitch and Mixer having fun playing together! We feel that Earthfall scratches that itch that co-op itch that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention. After two years, it is exciting to see it all come together!

EarthFall is a first person four-player survival co-op shooter that tasks players with fighting against threatening aliens and generally trying their best to stay alive. Currently on Steam Early Access, EarthFall will launch properly on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 sometime this spring, according to developer Holospark.

In this endeavour, players can arm themselves with a wide variety of weaponry, from modern rifles to futuristic mobile turrets and portable barricades. HDR and 4K resolution on PS4 and Xbox One have been promised by the developers.

When the game launches this spring, it will include a whole host of features including a full story mode and multiple campaigns, where players will uncover the reason they’re being invaded, just in case context is needed for you to really enjoy shooting aliens. You can check out the reveal trailer just below, where they announce the game coming to consoles.