MULTIPLAYER REVIEW: ‘Disintegration’ A New Twist to PvP (Xbox One)

Disintegration is a sci-fi first-person shooter combined with RTS elements which make for some really interesting gameplay. Developed by V1 Interactive and published by Private Division, the Disintegration multiplayer brings with it a good start to a very different PvP experience.

Disintegration allows players to pilot a Gravcycle and command a small crew in both the campaign and the multiplayer modes. However, while the campaign follows the adventures of Shoal and his crew, multiplayer features a motley bunch of crews players can command. Similar to the campaign, you’ll command a Gravcycle, with its own weapons and abilities, which not only can move horizontally but also vertically around the map. On top of this, players will control a crew of two to three units that each also have their own abilities and weapons.

If you haven’t played the campaign first, I would highly recommend going through the Training Center before taking a gander at the PvP aspects of Disintegration. The Training Center acts as a quick tutorial on the game mechanics and how to control your crew. There’s a lot going on and it’s best to get the basics down first before getting thrown into the frenetic gameplay you’ll experience in the Disintegration multiplayer.

There are a lot of buttons to learn and a lot of mechanics to keep in mind. To complicate things further, the Disintegration multiplayer has 3 game modes: Control, Collector, and Retrieval. Control requires players to capture and control specific zones throughout the map. The objective of Collector is for players to kill the opposing team and collect “cans” that drop from their bodies. Retrieval challenges players to collect and deliver cores to specific areas on the map in multi-round combat.

This is probably the one downside to the Disintegration multiplayer: it’s complicated. Commanding both your Gravcycle and multiple troops along with becoming accustomed to the variety of abilities at your disposal takes a lot of mental preparation. Toping this off with the demand of each game mode, paying attention to your objectives, getting used to the range of motion available to your Gravcycle, and deciding, often in a split second, whether to attack other players’ Gravcycles or their units makes for a lot to keep track of every game.

However, the creators have made the multiplayer as easy to pick up as possible: the tutorial and sandbox modes help accustom players to the controls, the button layout is rather intuitive, and, while there are 9 crews to pick from, there are some crews that are easier to play than others so both beginners and experts can have their fun.

Each crew has a different playstyle and even game mode in mind. Every crew is rated by three stats: durability, handling, and speed. With greater durability, players can better effectively defend an objective or make strong pushes. The downside is these crews tend to be slow so you won’t be able to quickly rush to objectives. More handling means greater maneuverability and dodging, which is really handy in dogfights with other Gravcycles. Speed is pretty intuitive; the higher your speed the quicker you can make it to objectives. The crews with greater speed tend to be a good starting point for beginners, but other crews allow for any playstyle to be satisfied.

The one downside to these crews is you can’t mix and match abilities and weapons. Each crew comes with a set combination and all you can change is the designs for the crews. This certainly limits some versatility, but there are enough crews to satisfy most players.

The crews are a delightfully quirky bunch. Each has a distinct design associated with them that range from Mad Max grunge to camo hunter to neon punk and everything in between. The characterization for these crews has been done so well that they scream personality from their poses to the smallest of details. It makes these crews more than just a set of stats.

There are also six unique maps to play, keeping every game fresh and allowing for different play styles to shine. Additionally, there are a variety of challenges to complete for multiplayer, many of which are specific to a crew, requiring players to diversity their playstyles.

Despite the complexity, this honestly feels like a good start to a multiplayer experience that poses a good chance at diversifying the multiplayer options currently available on the market. There is enough variety in game modes, maps, challenges, and crews to keep people entertained. However, what will be telling for the multiplayer’s longevity is how the developers deal with future growth. I can see how the multiplayer, without any updates, could become stale. So, will there be added content, more maps, or more crews to keep people wanting to play? For now, it’s a fun and new multiplayer experience.

Disintegration is available for Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC on June 16th.