Agents of Mayhem Hands-On Impressions

Volition surprised gamers around the world with the recent unveiling of a new title set in the Saints Row universe: Agents of Mayhem. Not wanting to completely uproot themselves from their open-world experiences, this new title focuses not just on a single player character but rather an unabridged squad of crime fighters.

Before each mission, players cull from any three of the twelve super agents that are part of a group known as the Multinational Agency for Hunting Evil Masterminds, or MAYHEM for curt. This grouping of agents is pitted against an equally elaborate evil grouping called the League of Evil Gentlemen Intent on Obliterating Masterminds (LEGION). These Agents of Mayhem are wholly funded by a corporation known as Ultor, whom players may recognize from the Saints Row universe.

Agents of Mayhem takes place in a futuristic open up world of Seoul, South Korea that's been rebuilt after Legion attacks. This gave Will a fair bit of liberty to adapt the earth to their own manner, complete with hereafter tech, billboards adorned with K-Popular stars, and a city that feels lived in unlike the sterile nature of another future cities.

The easily-on demo centered around trying to rescue a pop star named Aisha that's been kidnapped and held convict by Legion, with story beats being told in colorful anime cutscenes that gave a nice dissimilarity to the usual in-engine cinematics of previous Volition titles.

In the actual gameplay segment, Volition allowed four of the twelve agents to be selectable for the three-person squad. I ended up going with Fortune, a speedy character with dual pistols and various thrown traps, Hardtack who was more than of a tanky character with a shotgun, and Hollywood, a movie star that felt somewhere on the spectrum between Johnny Cage and Johnny Gat. Swapping between characters on the fly was every bit simple as hitting left or right on the D-Pad (The demo was being run on a GeForce GTX 1080-equipped PC with PS4 DualShock four controllers).

Will has doubled down on their mobile combat from the recent Saints Row entries, with being able to run effectually and fire without much limitation. Agents of Commotion expands on that past focusing more on the action and making it a more RPG-ish experience. Shooting enemies pops up damage readouts, giving instant gratification for a well placed headshot or knowing if an enemy might exist more vulnerable in another location. Unique character abilities all ran on a cooldown system which compelled me to bandy agents on the wing to permit one recover health or refresh their abilities.

Merely a pocket-size fraction of the open up-globe was available in the demo; substantially a straight path leading to an enemy see with a number of various Legion grunts defending a shield generator. From there, information technology was a matter of locating the enemy base where Aisha was said to be held captive. Naturally, the entrance button to the enemy lair was hidden in an inconspicuous trash can in the middle of the sidewalk. This revealed a staircase down to a large base setting that matched the motif of comic volume villain hideouts.

A minimap was conspicuously absent from the playable build and it wasn't mentioned what the specifics would be at release. Instead, trying to rails down enemies shooting at the agents was equally simple every bit holding downwards the triangle push to perform a brusque range scan and marking all of the enemies both on screen with highlights and those out of view with markers on the edges of the screen.

Agents of Mayhem showed off a bit of the RPG mechanics in this early build. Each agent had 3 dissimilar inventory slots for a special item, weapon modification, and passive ability. Hollywood, for example, could swap betwixt having a faster grenade cooldown when below 20% health or a an ability that augments his dash to stun nearby enemies. Murdering enough Legion minions or completing missions gave experience to level upwardly each agent individually. At level up, each agent is given an upgrade point for i of four upgrades that varied per character. In the demo, each ability maxed out at 5 which could indicate that the level cap in Agents of Mayhem is 20.

Agents of Mayhem was confirmed to be a purely single-player experience with no multiplayer components announced at this time. While not nowadays in the demo, vehicles were said to return and be a primary style to get around Seoul although fast travel was non mentioned yet.

Lead Amanuensis gameplay designer Ryan McCabe also confirmed that skins would be available for each agent. Whether these are unlocked as gameplay rewards or perhaps various pre-gild bonuses is something we'll look for in the time to come. It was implied that with the addition of character-specific skins, there may not be finer character customization such as individual accessories.

Volition's upcoming new IP Agents of Commotion takes a couple steps dorsum from their usual open world formula only to leap forward in style. Both the team based gameplay and emphasis on how to make the weapons and shooting fun make this one title that shows bang-up potential. If Volition can make a full experience that can match the tiny piece I've played, I'll be booking a ticket to Seoul next twelvemonth.