So the interface is a little junky and the game does chug when too many people get on the screen at one time, but the sheer intensity of 10-15 people breathing down your neck is intimidating as hell. Then when you drop the team-based playtime and go for an all-out deathmatch, it's all up in the air. We're not sure if the numbers ever truly hit 32 total, but let's just say the body count after each skirmish was shockingly high.
Aiming was generally pretty easy, strange controls or no - our only trouble with combat was the butt-in-the-face bludgeoning moves that didn't seem to connect well at all. And what's with the superhuman soldiers? Making it fun for a videogame is one thing, but once you shoot a guy in the face three times with a shotgun, he needs to go down.
Another battle mode, Hold the Line, had us defending a centralized flag for 200 clicks. Our team must have had some serious training beforehand, because we dominated that flag - the Axis never touched it once.
We left the battlefield confident in Heroes ' ability to deliver a solid online performance. It's not the smoothest scrap around, but you can't argue with the sheer number of bullets flying past your brain. You'll get your chance to defend or destroy the world on October 24.
"Cut to about 3 o'clock in the morning, I end up on the piano, the bars kicked us out, and I spent the weekend nursing a hangover": Troy Baker on the 9-hour bender that taught him how to bring Indiana Jones to life
Stalker 2 first post-launch patch is here and includes over 650 fixes for everything from quest blockers to crashes, but GSC Game World isn't done yet
