Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Features

Friends vs. Friends is Gamescom’s ridiculously fun show-stealer

Giovanni Colantonio
By

If you watched this year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live stream, I wouldn’t blame you if you can’t remember most of the games shown at it. The rapid-paced barrage of trailers meant that smaller indies were overshadowed by heavy hitters like Sonic Frontiers. By the time the show had ended, I had almost forgotten about Friends vs. Friends, a multiplayer shooter that got a quirky animated trailer.

I remembered it as I walked by publisher Raw Fury’s Gamescom booth. With no one in line to play, I decided to stop by on a whim and see how the game actually worked. I’m glad I did, because it was the most fun I had at the convention. The oddball shooter may not have massive long-term potential, but I know I’ll be begging my friends to play with me when it launches.

Friends vs Friends Reveal Trailer

Deck of guns

I knew Friends vs. Friends was a competitive first-person shooter that pitted players against one another (whether 1v1 or 2v2) based on the trailer, but what I didn’t realize is that it’s a quietly genius deck builder too. The way the game works is that players face off in a series of quick elimination rounds. Kill your friend, and you’ll win the round (in my demo, I faced off against another player in a best three out of five set-up). Simple. The twist is that players enter the battle with a deck of cards, a few of which are dealt to each player at the start of every round.

Recommended Videos

Cards have multiple utilities. A weapon card will give the player that weapon to use for the round, allowing them to trade in their starting gun for something like a katana or shotgun. Some cards contain buffs that’ll give players a unique advantage for the round. That goes the other way, as a player can use a card to hinder an opponent. For example, one card might reduce the damage your enemy deals.

Cards can be spent anytime during a round, and figuring out when to use them is the name of the game. It makes sense to start a battle by spawning a better weapon, but players will want to hang on to a card that heals them and use it once they start taking damage.

A player prepares to shoot at an opponent coming on the train in Friends vs. Friends.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

So what does that actually look like during a round? During my game, I was handed a preset deck (players will be able to build their own in the full game). I got the hang of the game within my first round. I started by burning a card to equip a sniper rifle. I started shuffling through my deck after that to see what might help me. A card that would stop my opponent from jumping? That would make it much easier for me to line up a shot. Oh, what’s this? Another card that gives them a big head? Within 30 seconds of playing, I had concocted the perfect strategy. With an immobile enemy with a giant headshot target, I was able to score the first win of the match.

I’m dying to see what other absurd cards there are and how I can combine them to put together a winning round.

Each round was completely different after that. In one, my opponent came charging at me with a sword as I tried to maintain distance and hit him with the machine gun I’d spawned. Though, my absolute favorite moment came when I drew the “nuke” card, which didn’t include an explanation as to what would happen if I used it. I used it the second I was able to, naturally. Sure enough, a massive nuke fell from the sky and reduced the entire map into a crater. Instead of fighting on a rooftop where we could hide behind air conditioners, we were in a barren open field — and that just happened to be a terrible match for the shotgun I had equipped.

Players fight in a diner in Friends vs. Friends.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Moments like that have me thrilled by the potential of the game’s simple premise. I’m dying to see what other absurd cards there are and how I can combine them to put together a winning round. I’m not sure how much depth the game will have based on my quick demo; it might just be a quick curiosity for friends to play for an evening or two. Regardless of how much more there is to do in the final version, I know I’ll be diving back in as soon as I can so I can construct my own brilliant strategies.

Friends vs. Friends is in development for PC and consoles.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Giovanni Colantonio
Giovanni Colantonio
Section Editor, Gaming
Giovanni is a writer and video producer focusing on happenings in the video game industry. He has contributed stories to…
Pinocchio Soulslike Lies of P is more than an absurd Bloodborne imitation
Pinocchio in Lies of P.

Lies of P is easily the most absurd pitch for a game I’ve ever heard. Imagine if you took Bloodborne, in all its gothic glory, but used its Soulslike structure to retell the story of Pinocchio in a steampunk setting … oh, and imagine if Pinocchio looked like Timothée Chalamet. I promise that I’m not making this up or suffering from a Gamescom-induced hallucination; it’s an entirely real game that I played with my own two hands.

Lies of P - Gameplay Reveal

Read more
Dead Island 2 had to ‘start from scratch’ to deliver better carnage
Dead Island 2.

In a shocking resurrection at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2022, Dead Island 2 came back from the dead. Despite having been in development for a decade, the version of the zombie action game coming in February has much fresher blood than what was teased in 2014. That’s because in 2018, development passed to a Deep Silver Dambuster Studios team that was content to start from scratch to create their own vision of the game.

“We thought it had loads of potential for characterful locations,” creative director James Worrall told me during an interview at Gamescom. "But when it came to the actual gameplay engine, what we really wanted to laser focus on was the up close and personal melee combat. There are guns in the game – gunsies are for funsies! – but it’s all about the melee combat … and to do that, we had to start from scratch.”

Read more
AEW: Fight Forever delivers N64 nostalgia at a cost
A Wrestler knees his opponent in the face.

The rise of All Elite Wrestling hasn’t just been great news for wrestling fans looking for an alternative to WWE; it also stirred up excitement for fans of wrestling games. Those who grew up with playing games like WWF No Mercy on Nintendo 64 have been waiting for a return to arcade-style wrestling, something that 2 K’s simulation-focused take on WWE doesn’t deliver. All Elite Wrestling: Fight Forever, the promotion’s debut game, looks to return us to those nostalgic glory days.
AEW: Fight Forever | Showcase Trailer 2022
But don’t get too excited just yet. While new footage premiered this week showing off a full match was promising, playing it was a different story. I took the game for a spin at Gamescom and walked away unsure of what to expect from the final product. While its approach to arcade wrestling has potential, AEW: Fight Forever is going to need a fair amount of polish before it hits the ring. A good gimmick can only get you so far with a crowd.
Taking bumps
To properly test the game, I pit Kenny Omega up against Adam Cole -- a dream match, no doubt. What’s immediate off the bat is that AEW: Fight Forever really isn’t trying to emulate the live TV experience. Wrestler entrances aren’t recreated, as the camera only shows the character models walking down the ramp for a moment before hitting the bell. There’s no ringside commentary, so you’ll just hear the roar of the crowd and some bumps while playing.
Some fans may enjoy that stripped-down approach, especially if they don’t really care about the simulation aspect of games like WWE 2K22, but that lack of extra detail does leave the experience feeling a little empty. If large ideas like that are missing from the final game, what others might get cut from the roster?

None of that would matter if the core wrestling was spot on, but I’m not entirely sold on the game’s N64-throwback style. During my match, it felt like I was mostly just throwing strikes as I mashed the attack buttons. The right trigger is a dedicated Irish whip button, hilariously, but I otherwise found it difficult to stumble into a big spot. If I ever got onto the top rope, it was an accident. And if I ever managed to jump off it, I could not tell you how to reproduce that.
(I'd return to the demo later in the week with the intent of treating it like less of a pick-up-and-play experience. When I took a more deliberate approach in my Hikaru Shida vs. Paul Wight match, I still came out with similar feelings. The game's reliance on grappling to set up flashier moves particularly stands out, as it makes most big moments feel telegraphed. I don't think that's bad and WWF No Mercy fans might adore it, but it does feel a little at odds with the explosive, unpredictable nature of the actual wrestling show its based on. WWE 2K22 feels like an AEW game and AEW Fight Forever feels like a WWE game.)
My match didn’t look nearly as fluid or clean as the one THQ Nordic showed off at Gamescom.

Read more