There’s some tower defense comfort. However, it’s sandwiched between layers of uninspired story-telling and extraction shooter-like resource gathering. Throw in some rogue-like elements and base-building, just because, coupled with lots of crashes.

"The spectacle is hard to deny, as you activate turrets, pour bullet after bullet into the swarm and even hop into a mech to dish out punishment. Unfortunately, it’s even further downhill from here."

Set in the future where machines called the Mechanos have gained sentience under a singular AI and declared war against humanity, you play as a fairly forgettable rote protagonist. You’re part of the Starfall Project, chatting it up with your Commanding Officer, Levi Lau when suddenly, the base is attacked by the Mechanos. After taking down waves of enemies, you’re overrun by a drone swarm dubbed Crius before the Anti-Earthbound Tyrranos Orbital System, or AETOS, brings its full might down.

It’s a heroic last-stand mission which feels completely unearned since you know none of these characters or had time to sympathize with them. Nevertheless, the spectacle is hard to deny, as you activate turrets, pour bullet after bullet into the swarm (clearly “inspired” by the Matrix Revolutions) and even hop into a mech to dish out punishment. Unfortunately, it’s even further downhill from here.

Several months later, you’re now in control of Fae, a recently promoted Commander who gets his own Outpost, touted as fully modular. The player can add walls and other defensive structures on the fly, including turrets and ammo crafters. At some point, a mysterious AI – later dubbed Juliette – joins forces with Fae, allowing him to commandeer some nearby mortars before never doing much of anything until the plot calls for it. And when the plot does, it suffers in an embarrassing fashion.

However, you’re not playing tower defense all of the time. When embarking on tours, you have a tactical map of branching paths. Each has different power requirements and resources to gather – some allow for exploring freely while others task you with finding specific items and extracting them via the Outpost’s core tower.

"However, you’re not playing tower defense all of the time. When embarking on tours, you have a tactical map of branching paths."

The result is you’re tossed into these generic, barren-looking stages to hunt for materials, difficult to distinguish without an area scan (which only lasts for a short time). A few Mechanos are roaming around, and their AI is horrendous to the point that it feels like shooting fish in a barrel, except even the other fish would react to the gunshots.

As you explore different buildings, some of which are recycled, like the tower with the massive gun turrets you can control despite the lack of many threats, there are consumables, materials, and what not to collect. Some are empty or feel unrewarding, making those lockpicks you spent feel like a waste. Others require finding keycards or power banks to open doors, which gets boring on the second run-through.

Along with attachments like scopes, stocks and whatnot, you get an XEN mod to modify your singular gun. On the surface, this is cool since it fits the whole “modular construction” theme, but the perks aren’t all that interesting, even with the addition of Pyro ammo later on. While changing your gun to fire explosive projectiles instead of bullets sounds cool, each shot has its own cooldown. Also, you can’t remove mods once they’re installed, so if that sounds terrible and completely contradicts that one ability to fire bullets endlessly for a brief period, tough luck.

Once you’ve spent enough time gathering resources, it’s time to extract. I mean, extract from the entire map, separate from all the extraction done thus far. You have about 100 seconds to set up your defenses and turrets – with no option to skip the preparation phase – as the Mechanos will try to assault you in waves. Depending on the exploration and missions completed in earlier map nodes, you gain benefits like more materials, damage, free turrets and guardian buddies, and more for the final mission. While skipping over all these is an option, you might get overwhelmed with the final extraction mission.

"One of the bigger issues revolves around ammo management since your ammo crafters can only create one box at a time before going on cooldown for several seconds."

There are some free towers on the field, and thankfully, the Mechanos pose somewhat of a threat when given direction i.e. towards your base. It can be a little easy on Difficulty 1 and 2 in the starting tours, but Difficulty 3 kicks things up and poses a challenge, especially when armored tanks with mortars and hulking melee Mechanos jump into the fray. One of the bigger issues revolves around ammo management since your ammo crafters can only create one box at a time before going on cooldown for several seconds.

Since you need to reload turrets manually, it gets annoying to manage even if you have a few boxes on standby beforehand. Your own shots consume about six ammo, which drains them quickly. It’s probably meant to encourage relying on your turrets, but feels ridiculous all the same, especially when the shooting is tight and on-point throughout.

Once you successfully extract everything, you earn Tech Points to spend on research and Gold to buy materials and other consumables. The progression feels slow – you’ll be rocking the same piddly turrets a few hours in and only have enough materials to craft a few to attach to your Outpost when it lands. Tech Points feel like they’re hard to come by, making the slog to higher research tiers much more annoying.

It also doesn’t help that failing an extraction means losing everything, including all those resources you spent time gathering. Maybe this is meant to feel more realistic, like Escape from Tarkov, but while it’s in keeping with tower defense titles where you start from scratch, also losing your weapons, armor and backpack items feels lame.

"If you want to experience tower defense/action goodness, Sanctum 2 and Orcs Must Die! 2 are still the way to go."

The pace of the campaign also doesn’t help, as you revisit the same areas again and again in Tour Mode or embark on more linear story-driven missions with uninspired objectives. The former wouldn’t be so bad if the tactical map didn’t crash continuously. Simply opening it or choosing a node would prompt a crash. Have fun watching the unskippable intro again as you load back in, with the game mercifully saving your progress so you can resume from the same spot (and probably crash again).

The aesthetic isn’t necessarily inspired, but it’s not terrible, even if it can look unattractive with odd shimmering on lower-end rigs. At least, it’s better than the voice acting or the repetitive music. I didn’t venture into co-op, but based on complaints that progression and items aren’t shared among all players, it doesn’t sound worth it.

Outpost: Infinity Siege could have been an enjoyable title if it streamlined the tower defense aspect instead of needlessly tacking on extraction shooter mechanics or the tactical map, lightened up on the ammo economy and allowed players quicker access to its cooler toys. Creating killboxes and piloting mechs sounds enticing – it just needs a better overall structure, a lot less of its cheesy story-telling and much more technical polish. If you want to experience tower defense/action goodness, Sanctum 2 and Orcs Must Die! 2 are still the way to go. Even if the $24.99 price looks attractive, Outpost needs a lot more time and polish.

This game was reviewed on PC.

"Exploration, defense, improve your outpost in our base system, exploration, defense… are the core cycles of our game."

Outpost: Infinity Siege is blending elements from a number of different genres, from shooters to strategy games to tower defense games. How did the idea for this specific blend of genres come about, and what have been the biggest challenges in ensuring that the game offers a cohesive experience with all of these unique elements?

I am a big fan of survival games and am aware of what they lack in terms of experience. The integration of these elements was an attempt to compensate for these shortcomings, thereby creating some new experiences.

Survival games are a genre rich in mechanisms, and innovation is a significant challenge for us. We indeed blended many familiar mechanisms, but not just by stacking these gameplay elements on top of each other. Instead, after setting a clear goal, we believed that the addition of these mechanisms could achieve the new experiences we wanted. I can give two examples:

For instance, in survival games, players collect resources to build their own “home,” but this brings two problems:

1. The destruction of the “home” comes at a great cost, so you anticipate its challenges, but you dare not verify whether the “home” can withstand these challenges (because if you lose, the home is gone). The “home” in Outpost: Infinity Siege can be verified repeatedly and can continue to grow. This was one of the core differentiated mechanisms we determined from the beginning.
2. As the “home” gets bigger, using and maintaining it might become more and more burdensome. Imagine having to run between several floors to ensure all facilities are functioning correctly or to fend off attacks from all directions, which could consume most of your attention and game time.

We introduced the RTS mechanism precisely to “reduce the burden” on players in operating the outpost. You can conveniently use all the functions of your “home,” freeing up time to do other things, enjoy exploring and shooting, or simply appreciate the firepower network performance of your “home.”

Given the emphasis Outpost: Infinity Siege seems to be placing on exploration, what can you tell us about its world and how it’s designed? What can players expect from it in terms of its size and the variety of environments we’ll be exploring?

Exploration, defense, improve your outpost in our base system, exploration, defense… are the core cycles of our game.

Actually, exploration won’t take up a lot of the player’s time, but it is a very important link in the process. On our Exploration Days (exploration time), players will collect various loots/resources, but they need to undergo a high-intensity battle on the last day (Recovery Day) to take them out. The more materials that need to be brought back, the greater the intensity of the battle.

Similarly, the deeper you explore, the more supplies you will consume and the more dangers you will encounter, but you can also obtain better materials and more beneficial events to help you face the challenges of Recovery Day.

We hope that players can decide their resource allocation and exploration depth based on the dynamic events and materials they encounter during exploration.

"Ultimately, we hope players can recreate classic scenes from popular sci-fi movies and games through building their own outposts, bringing those memorable moments to life."

How expansive are the systems that will drive the game’s outpost building mechanics? How much freedom will the game afford to players in terms of what kind of outpost they want to build, and how they want to build it?

The growth of the outpost is designed around the keyword “firepower,” ultimately leading to the creation of one’s own firepower fortress, then enjoying the “epic view” of it unleashing barrages against hordes of enemies.

Continuously building and evolving the outpost to face enemies in one’s preferred style, whether it be a “land cruiser,” a “wedge fortress,” a “depth of science artillery array,” or simply “a wall crammed with cannons.”

We have hundreds of outpost components, various interesting and powerful weapons and equipment, along with parts designed for assistance/support/expanding resource limits, as well as various types of defensive structure components. There are a plethora of choices and room for creativity, along with consideration for the most appropriate placement of components.

Ultimately, we hope players can recreate classic scenes from popular sci-fi movies and games through building their own outposts, bringing those memorable moments to life.

What shape will the game’s progression and customization mechanics take outside of outpost building?

All our growth is aimed at enabling players to challenge higher difficulties and confront more exaggerated enemies. In the game, you will be the commander of an organization, capable of expanding your organization (a massive underground base), recruiting and training team members, embarking on explorations, or dispatching them on missions.

Additionally, there’s a rich research system offering a variety of combat and exploration methods, either by providing powerful weapons or cool appearances.

Moreover, we have XEN gun (Xenium Extension Nucleus, a new metal element in Outpost’s worldview), which allows you to collect a wide range of XEN. These can be combined like magical elements and fired from the gun. Constantly experimenting with combinations, you can create a “magic wand” When playing with friends, you can take this gun to show off to them.

What are the biggest ways that the XEN Firearm will define Outpost: Infinity Siege’s moment-to-moment gameplay loop?

Like in any FPS game, the primary combat method for players is shooting with guns. However, the “XEN Gun” is far more than just that.

It’s a customized gun system that allows for free assembly. Throughout the game, you can pick up “weapon attachments” and “XEN modules.” Players can modify their guns at any time. Weapon attachments might alter the gun’s parameters, such as recoil and shot spread, while “solvents” can significantly change the nature of the bullets fired. You can assemble common real-life firearms (such as submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, etc.) as well as more imaginative and fantastical weapons, including splitting shares, flamethrowers, bounce pads, gravity fields, repair beams, and more.

The game’s numerous enemies serve as the perfect testing ground for your weapons: you can assemble the most powerful firearms or use gravity fields to gather enemies together, then annihilate them with the help of your outpost’s firepower. Beyond combat, you can assemble a “support gun” to shoot at outpost components to provide buffs or perform repairs.

"We do not have plans for creating PvP modes, as PvE is our focus and where we dedicate all our efforts. We hope to keep it pure and allow players to enjoy the process of gradually developing their outpost."

Outpost: Infinity Siege does have co-op options, but are there any plans to maybe also add PvP multiplayer down the line? Given its unique blend of genres, I imagine something like that would take quite a bit of time to nail down.

We do not have plans for creating PvP modes, as PvE is our focus and where we dedicate all our efforts. We hope to keep it pure and allow players to enjoy the process of gradually developing their outpost.

However, we have experimented with PvP gameplay in the past and obtained some very exciting ideas and results. We might try implementing these in the future, but our main goal will always be to provide fun rather than competitive gameplay.

What can you tell us about your post-launch plans for the game? Do you have any new content or gameplay features that you’re looking to add after the game has released?

Our game has a lot of room for expansion, including components, levels, monsters, equipment, characters, and game modes. Of course, our first step will be to adjust the game’s balance, performance, and mechanics based on player feedback.

Do you have any plans to also bring the game to consoles?

We have integrated FPS and RTS gameplay styles, allowing players to seamlessly switch between them. Initially, we did not consider the controller environment, and the operation and key assignment pose a significant challenge. If there is a high demand from players, we will consider it.

As such, the baton for breaking that new ground has been passed down to the AA and indie game scene where plenty of new and exciting releases await us right around the corner. This feature series is dedicated to putting a spotlight on such promising games, and today we will be looking at Outpost: Infinity Siege. The game is currently in development at Team Ranger, and Outpost: Infinity Siege is looking to be yet another game that stands out against the barrage of homogenized releases in the current AAA landscape.

Outpost: Infinity Siege is an interesting mix of tactical defense, real-time strategy, and first person shooting. These are all wildly different genres that appeal to different audiences, but they seem to work pretty well in tandem with here. As you can observe in the available footage for the game, the action smoothly transitions from one type of gameplay to the without any hitches which almost makes this conjunction of genres feel amazing. The game takes place in an unnamed sci-fi world where players are in charge of commandeering a Mobile Outpost as you defend your base against enemy forces and advance your troops deep into uncharted territory in a grand quest to overthrow the opposition.

As you can imagine, this is a pretty barebones narrative setup that does just enough to put you in the action which can be a good thing because the developer isn’t spending its crucial resources into a story that not many players would be interested in. If anything, it’s a positive sign that Team Ranger knows that the core of its game is the unique combat loop – and is trying to double down on those core mechanics and polish them to an immaculate sheen.

Each invasion starts with the player preparing their defenses for the battle. You can set up turrets, machine guns, missiles and all sorts of equipment that one would expect from a game of this ilk alongside a healthy amount of deadly traps like explosive barrels which can be used against incoming enemies. The game will also support co-op gameplay, so players will be able to use support from friends and create even bigger outposts and cause even more mayhem on the frontlines.

Outpost: Infinity Siege seems to feature plenty of options for players to choose when it comes to defense equipment, and you will need to make some wise choices if you wish to survive the toughest white knuckle challenges in the game. The trailer showcases huge squadrons of enemies attacking from the skies above while ground troops pummel down the player’s defenses, so fans should be prepared to face some brutal challenges while playing Outpost: Infinity Siege.

Once the defenses have been set up, players can shift their perspective to first person as they get thrust right into the heat of the battle. The player character is pretty nimble to control, and you can cover huge distances quickly by using your grappling hook to transport you through long corridors and over walls. The shooting mechanics also look pretty competent for the most part, thanks to adequate audio and visual feedback from the guns as well as damage indicators on the enemies.

Furthermore, you can also take control of huge mechs and wreak havoc upon your adversaries by using heavy ammunition – which looks really cool to be honest. There’s also some RTS elements in Outpost: Infinity Siege, which will allow you to direct the specific enemy units your defenses should prioritize, and which ones should be left for you to deal with. All in all, there’s impressive variety in the modes of gameplay on offer, and it seems that the focus here is on juggling between these different modes in real time as you try to hold off huge armies against what seem to be insurmountable hordes of enemies.

As mentioned previously, player progression will also play a huge role as you advance your conquest in the game. Each successful mission will net you rewards in the form of XP, which can be encashed for upgrades to your outpost. You will be able to install thicker walls of defense and more cannons to further your security alongside possible upgrades to your mechs and other methods of offensive combat – which will enable you to take on even tougher challenges in the game.

Briefly talking about the visuals, Outpost: Infinity Siege looks nothing short of amazing. Not only the graphics look great from a technical standpoint, but also intriguing in its art direction. The designers over at Team Ranger have done a great job of depicting a sci-fi world threatened by mechanical monsters and gargantuan mechs which deserves praise on its own. On that note, we should also highlight that the team seems to have done a great job of rendering all the real time chaos that ensues in these invasions without any hitches as well.

When it comes to Outpost: Infinity Siege, the most crucial piece of the puzzle will undoubtedly be the balance between these different forms of gameplay and whether each of these different loops feed into each other to create a cohesive and fun experience. Ideally, players should have the option to make really smart tactical decisions before the start of the invasion and set up a sturdy defense wall and complete the mission without firing a single bullet in the first person perspective.

On the other hand, any slip-ups on the preparations front would then require them to harden their efforts by aggressively pushing enemies while controlling a mech or setting off any last minute traps. Whether the game ends up being successful or not relies on whether Team Ranger is able to crack that element of balance without skimping out on the depth of individual mechanics that make up this experience.

In conclusion, Outpost: Infinity Siege is looking to be a fresh game in an industry that’s too reliant on rehashing old formulas for the sake of increasing profit margins and reducing risks to a minimum. The team seems to have done a great job of realizing the potential of this mishmash of genres, and the end result looks nothing short of extraordinary.

Of course, there’s still some skepticism to be had when it comes to games that we haven’t played for ourselves – so the best course of action is to always keep our expectations in check for the worst. Outpost: Infinity Siege is set to release for PC sometime in Q3 2023, and we will be checking it out when it releases, and we are hopeful that it will deliver on most if not all of its promises.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.