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Brink Demo Impressions

Posted June 12th 2009 by Jacob Barnes.

On the first day of the convention, Derrick and I headed over to the Bethesda Softworks booth prepared with questions for an interview with the company. What we got instead was a demo of a new game developed in partnership between Bethesda and Splash Damage entitled Brink. Check out impressions and details of the upcoming game after the break.

Brink was only recently announced just before E3, but what is it? The game is a futuristic first-person shooter set in the year 2035 where the sea levels have risen to extreme levels (think of a more advanced version of Waterworld). The entire game takes place on the Ark, a floating city that is now running out of resources needed for the population and ready to collapse.

The game features enough customization options to create a total of 19.2 billion unique "badass" characters. Almost everything is customizable, from a player's race to style of clothing, and it looks great. You can also customize what class you want; different character classes are needed to complete specific objectives, and you can change your class as needed. The characters look pretty vibrant and detailed, as do the environments. The demo we were shown led us through metal docks along the ocean with bright blue skies, to the darker parts of shanty town corridors.

Gameplay focuses heavily on teamwork and cooperation. Our demo had about eight people playing simultaneously, with a separate group in another room playing with our host. Players earn experience points by completing objectives. But unlike most games, you get to choose your objective from a pop-up radial menu. The harder the objective, the more XP it's worth. It's safe to assume these points will be used to increase character attributes.

A different useful feature shown was a tool called the S.M.A.R.T. button, which stands for Smooth Movement Around Random Terrain. This guides the player through an automatic best fit path with the press of a button, like an auto pilot. It looked similar to playing Mirror's Edge, except here the game does everything for you. Well, almost everything. Where you are looking affects what the SMART system does. Two examples we were shown: looking toward the ground near some alarm-tripping laser beams and pressing the SMART button caused the character to slide under the lasers; looking up at the housing containing said lasers and pressing the SMART button caused the character to climb on top of it. It will be interesting to see how this mechanic affects their overall gameplay design. Whether it allows them to add more complexity to the game as Splash Damage founder Paul Wedgewood suggested, or if it's just a crutch for more casual players.

Brink is certainly one to keep an eye on as new information is released. The game is due out on the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC in Spring 2010.