Sector’s Edgeis a casual first-person shooter that takes place at the far end of the known universe where a star supposedly went supernova, embedding fragments of itself into nearby planets that have become known as “Soltrium.“PCplayers load up their preferred gear and take one another on across a futuristic adventure to recover these MacGuffins, which serve as a powerful energy source.
As a fan offirst-person shooters, Vericidium developer Mitchell Robinson hoped to bring a more casual atmosphere to players. “We want to cater it for people who come home from work, and they’re exhausted. All they want to do is play a couple of games and just have fun,” he said. “This first-person shooter just gets it out of the way and lets the player play how they want.” Robinson spoke to Game Rant aboutSector’s Edgenow that the game is available in beta on Steam.
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Sector’s Edge Encourages Building While Fighting
One distinctionSector’s Edgehas over much of its competition is the player’s ability to construct and fortify structures. While Robinson praises the destructible environments of games likeBattlefield, he wanted to bridge a gap into the “boxel” video game art style. “WhenAce of Spadesgot shut down, I thought it was a huge part of my life. I didn’t want to lose that genre of game that so many people love. So I started working onSector’s Edge. The destruction is the main thing.” Structures inSector’s Edgeplay a major part in the strategies executed by players throughout each campaign.
“You never know what the enemy team is going to do, what your team is planning. It keeps it refreshing, and that’s why building is a core part of the game.”
Players can build anything from stairs to bridges, which can be fortified or destroyed in real time. The building element makes each run unique, as players can construct various obstacles for their opponents or bases to protect their own team. Using acustom ray tracing audio programdeveloped forSector’s Edge, Robinson said there’s an element of realism to the experience. “[We thought it] would be fun to experiment with just having more realistic audio in a game that we haven’t heard before like in other games.” He said an explosion right next to a character will sound much louder than if it happened behind a thick, fortified wall, as just one example.
Weapon Customization in Sector’s Edge
When players load into a game, they are given access to an arsenal with limited options, but potentially endless possibilities. Combinations of armaments for any campaign include utilities, armor modifications, and weapons with customizable skins and crosshairs. “Tying that back to playing how you want,” Robinson said ofweapon customization, “It’s like players are still navigating [and thinking], ‘When can I grab an assault rifle and start killing people?'” Fifteen weapons total are available to players in the game’s current build, ranging from explosives to shotguns.
“There are so many other aspects to the game. Try out the building, try out the destruction, but the players seem to be like ‘Kill everybody over here!’ So we’re going to try now to plan a video of everything you can do in Sector’s Edge. Saying, ‘Hey! You’re enjoying the stuff over here. But what about all the other cool stuff that we’ve got for you over here?'”
Each weapon can be further customized with different kinds of ammo types, payloads, barrels, cores, triggers, magazines, grips, and stocks. Robinson said players can explore countless styles for each gun, and modify the weapons accordingly. For example, ashort-range SMG with light ammocan be altered into a long-range SMG with heavy ammo and an extended barrel, with some tradeoffs in terms of stats. Yet all possible customizations can be viable, and the possibilities for what players might want changes with each run.
Sector’s Edgebegan development late in 2017. Robinson and his team at Vericidium have beenreviewing player feedback extensivelyto determine their next move. “The feedback has been ‘Play the game to its full potential.’ And I guess that’s on us because we haven’t shown everything you can do. There are so many other aspects to the game.” Further developments and updates are expected, though as of now there isn’t a sense of when the “full release” will be available. Fans can still enjoy their ride through deep space in the meantime.
TheSector’s EdgeBeta is free-to-play on Steam.
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