Phoenix Point Backer Build One Gameplay/Impressions

The first playable backer build for Snapshot Games’ Phoenix Point went live yesterday, allowing the eligible backers to experience an early version of the game’s tactical turn-based combat. And if you’d like to see this build in action for yourself, you can check out this YouTube video from Snapshot Games’ community manager UnstableVoltage:

And if watching a two hour long video seems a bit excessive to you, you can alternatively check out this Polygon article for some backer build impressions. An excerpt:

In the 1994 version of X-COM, it was possible, at times likely, that you could shoot one of your allies instead of the alien standing next to them. That’s because each and every shot that was fired in that game was tracked to see what it hit. Sometimes you’d see a plasma bolt flying straight across the map, into the dark area covered by the fog of war. If you were lucky, you’d hit an alien. Sometimes, you killed a civilian sitting in their kitchen at home. If you were really unlucky, you’d hit the pump outside of a gas station, leading to a catastrophic explosion that wiped out half the map.

In 2012’s XCOM, that level of simulation simply didn’t happen. Sure, you could toss a bad grenade or a missile could go wide of its target, but most of the shots fired in the game were abstracted. Either they hit the target, destroyed some of the cover your target was standing next to, or didn’t hit anything at all.

In Phoenix Point, every single round you fire is tracked using a realistic ballistics system. Each one will travel straight on through until it meets an obstruction. Therefore, knowing what’s in front of and behind your target is crucial in staying safe on the battlefield.

You can get an idea of what the foreground and the backstop of your target look like by aiming over the shoulder of one of your soldiers. Overlayed on the target are two concentric circles, one red and the other orange.