From Marvel Rivals to Concord to Fragpunk, many new competitive shooters are attempting to stake their claim in one of gaming’s most popular genres. We’re at the point where new multiplayer games need something special to stand out, whether that be the use of well-known superheroes in Marvel Rivals or the unique card-based gameplay of Fragpunk. Spectre Divide is a new game from Mountaintop Studios and yet another multiplayer first-person shooter that hopes to become the next big thing. Its twist on the formula? Players can control and swap between two different bodies while playing.
Spectre Divide is technically a 3v3 shooter, but each player has two characters that they can position properly and swap between on a dime in order to get a strategic upper hand on other players. Based on a couple of Spectre Divide rounds I played with some of its developers ahead of today’s official reveal, the “Duality” mechanic feels like a lot more than a gimmick.
Duality delivers
Spectre Divide’s main mode is Bomb Diffusal. It’s a round-based, best-of-eight mode in which one team attempts to plant and set off a bomb (called a Zeus) while the other tries to kill all their opponents or defuse the bomb once it is set. Players earn income between each round and can spend that match-specific currency to buy weapons, armor, and abilities between rounds if they need to. That should all sound familiar if you’ve played Counter-Strike or Valorant before.
I appreciate that the buy phase offers pre-set bundles for players who want to avoid buying individual weapons for two different characters. Once players are in a match, that’s where the Duality mechanic comes into play. During the buy phase before each round, players can set their main and spectre body wherever they want on a map. Players can quickly swap between them by pressing X. To move their spectre during the match, players have to throw a puck on the ground, and the spectre will travel to that new location. That mechanic enables quite a few unique strategies.
I could bait a player out with one body and then switch to another when they approach to flank them. My team could fake out our opponent by making it look like we were attacking bomb-planting site A when we were actually going to site B. Or, I could tuck my spectre away in a hidden spot so I could respawn and run back into battle as them when my other body dies. I can’t wait to see what high-level play from people who master Duality looks like.
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Duality is an innovative mechanic for a competitive shooter, but Spectre Divide also needs to feel good to play if it wants to survive. Thankfully, it does. Although its shooting feels like Valorant’s from the offset, it allows players to aim down sights (ADS) with any weapon and discourages shooting from the hip. This allows for more precision and makes Spectre Divide more approachable for games with ADS, like Call of Duty or XDefiant. Even as someone who doesn’t typically play shooters on a mouse and keyboard, Spectre Divide feels intuitive.
It’s also a hero shooter of sorts. I say that because Spectre Divide doesn’t have pre-set heroes that players have to choose among but still features special abilities players can use during a match. Players can customize each of their characters and guns on the main menu with cosmetics earned through its battle pass or bought within an in-game store (Spectre Divide is a free-to-play game, after all). Once a match starts, players must choose from one of eight Sponsors, each of which provides three unique abilities. My favorite is Bloom Technologies, which let me deploy a bullet-blocking Hex Barrier, heal allies with Twin Mend, and create a damaging smokescreen with the Swarm Grenade.
Other Sponsors have equally interesting abilities, like a Ryker Industries Wave Scan that bounces between two bodies and can detect enemies throughout most of the map. So far, I’ve had a really good time with Mountaintop Studios’ first game. Duality feels baked into the gameplay, not just like a gimmick layered on top. Its gameplay feels familiar to titles like Counter-Strike and Valorant but still feels distinct in several ways. Fans of competitive shooters should keep their eye on this one as it approaches launch.
Spectre Divide is in development for PC. It won’t have controller support at release, but Mountaintop is considering it post-launch.
