After four years, including two years in Early Access, GTFO will receive its final story update, bringing the harrowing narrative to a bloody end. The 10 Chambers-developed game carved out a niche as a hardcore shooter that required teamwork to surmount myriad obstacles for survival and success. While it will still receive support regarding bugs and other maintenance, GTFO’s next update, “Rundown 8.0: Duality,” is the keystone for the studio’s first project.
In addition to the conclusion to GTFO’s story, “Rundown 8.0: Duality” brings a slew of content with it. While GTFO’s available missions have shifted over the years, the various ‘Rundowns,’ GTFO’s analog for campaigns, were rotated out to make room for the next chapter and to ensure stability. This time, however, nothing is being removed, and the game’s previous Rundowns are all being reimplemented, giving players 80 missions of exploration, combat, and survival in nightmarish locales and against the freakish entities within. Together with an arsenal of dozens of weapons and a variety of loosely role-defining tools, squads can experiment with load-outs to find the right combination for each situation.
After some time with GTFO’s final update, we were pleasantly surprised by the experience, utilizing the game’s various tools and the plethora of information provided to explore a mostly abandoned facility and retrieve a valuable tool inside. Being led by their captor, “The Warden,” players must exercise caution and combat awareness in equal measure as they alternate between methodically wiping out dormant enemies and defending themselves against waves of ravenous creatures.
The alternating intensity provided plenty of moments to regroup and search for supplies, creating a satisfying rhythm culminating in a mad dash for the extraction point. As exciting as the experience was, it was only the introduction to the final stretch of missions making up GTFO’s story. Despite the relative ease of the introductory mission, we were wiped out once before completing the goal. But it didn’t dampen the experience; we learned from our failure and came back a second time, defeating the horrid monsters and claiming our prize.
The developers call GTFO a game that needed to be made, and with such a small team, it served as a benchmark of their capabilities while also providing an opportunity to grow, both as a studio and as individuals. They committed to forgoing microtransactions or downloadable content when it launched, allowing players to enjoy all future updates without additional payment.
However, this has proved to be a double-edged sword because their growing team has outpaced what GTFO can provide, necessitating a departure from their beloved project. After seven years of development and updates, 10 Chambers is ready to move on to another game, but they leave GTFO as a fully realized project packed with hours of gameplay.
“Rundown 8.0: Duality” is live now, with a free weekend on Steam to allow players to try the game before fully committing.