Loadout the Shooter I didn’t know I wanted

“So and so has started playing Loadout.

Another person has started playing Loadout.

That guy you never talk to has started playing Loadout.

Your umpteenth friend has started playing Loadout.

Okay the *&%! is Loadout?!”

After seeing a plethora of my friends boot up the game I decided it was time for me to check it out. After installing and playing a few games, it turned out that Loadout was a game I never knew I wanted.

For those who haven’t heard of the game, Loadout is a F2P third person shooter on steam developed by Edge of Reality. It aims to be as ridiculous and silly as Team Fortress 2, with it’s art design and game play, but has it’s own style. Similar to the other free games on steam, Loadout runs on microtransactions. You can choose to buy parts of the game, or unlock them by playing for free.

The idea behind Loadout is, to create a weapon load out that tailors to your playstyle. With a diverse and creative crafting system you can make almost any gun your mind can imagine. Want a sniper rifle that shoots fire? Done. What about a rocket launcher that heals you and your team mates? Done. A semi-automatic laser? Well they’ve got that too.

The more you use your weapon, the better you become with it increasing damage, healing, accuracy and other bonuses. The more weapon types you play around with the more you can unlock, like shotguns modifications and three round bursts. My prefered loadout is a gun similar to the medic’s medi gun and a flamethrower, and grenade that increases my team mate’s damage and movement speed.

The game play is objective based with a very floaty feel. While the camera angles can be difficult at first, you’ll quickly grasp them and keep moving. There are multiple game types ranging from Call of Duty’s Kill Confirmed to a wacky take on capture the flag where the flag is a hammer that increases the points you gain depending on the number of kills you have with it.

My only real qualm about the game is for something that is so dead on about customizing, you have to pay to customize your character. You have the choice between three characters: Axl, your average duke nukem wanna be, T-Bone, a Mr. T esque character and Helga, a large woman who doesn’t fit the mold of general fps characters or any female character in video games (which is very refreshing). And that’s it.  You can’t even make a character in their underwear without having to pay for it. Hopefully this will change in the future.

With the promise of a competitive scene, custom games and many more updates to come to this game still in early forms of development, Loadout has a bright future ahead of it.