Theorycraft Games, a new studio comprised of developers that worked on League of Legends, Apex Legends, Halo games, and more, revealed this week its very first game: Supervive. This game was previously known as Project Loki when it was first unveiled last year with gameplay showing off a mix of elements that looked reminiscent of some of those previously mentioned games thanks to a battle royale structure blending MOBA and shooter elements together. We got to play the game ahead of time during a preview event and came away impressed and dazed at what all it offered, but would-be Supervive players themselves will be able to play it later this year when it enters open beta.
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Supervive has a lot going on with it, so much so that it’s best previewed first through a gameplay trailer. Below is a part cinematic, part gameplay sample of Supervive that shows an experience which should look somewhat familiar to those who’ve spent any amount of time in League, Dota 2, or battle royale games.
Supervive will be free-to-play, Theorycraft confirmed, and from our experience with the game, characters referred to as “hunters” in Supervive can be unlocked until you’ve got a robust roster full of supports, tanks, and more offensive characters to round out teams of either two or four players at a time. A match can hold 40 players at once regardless of the battle royale game size, and 4v4 deathmatches are also an option for those looking for a different experience.
The core win condition of Supervive‘s normal battle royale matches follows the general formula of the genre: wipe enemy teams and be the last ones standing. Teammates can get knocked or even outright eliminated, but so long as you’ve got one person alive on your team, you’re still in the fight with there likely being some way for you to perhaps bring a teammate back. All the while, a ring-shaped storm closes in on players to keep the action tight and to promote movement.
You’ll likely be moving a lot in Supervive anyway because even if you’re not shooting someone, there’s a ton to do. During a few hours of gameplay, I was cooking food, dodging trains, picking locks, and doing much more than I’d ever though I’d be doing in a game billed as something like a MOBA. Supervive honestly might have too much to do at first since you’re trying to reap the rewards from all these side missions while fending off other teams in the process, but others in the playtest and on my team had been playing Supervive far longer than I had, and it was evident that most of these actions became second nature over time. Callouts saying to pick up this item or that or to rotate to points of interest for PvE experience or better loot made sense in context even if it was challenging to keep up with so many components at once.
For those like me who are coming at Supervive from a MOBA background, the WASD controls may take some getting used to. That’s your primary movement option while your cursor aims for you, so it takes more than a bit of reprograming to get in tune with that while trying to double-hit your spacebar to glide over a cavern in the map lest you get spiked down by an enemy while trying to figure out the controls. Again, much of this comes down to time invested and experience. Once those barriers of entry are out of the way, Supervive felt like it had ample potential to diversify matches and keep players invested with its many systems to capitalize on.
As for when people can play Supervive more publicly, you’ve got two options. There’s a public playtest coming up on June 27th which is to be the largest one yet, so if you’re hoping to get in on a level playing field alongside others who are just now joining, your best bet is to sign up here. Theorycraft says it’ll have an open beta for Supervive later in the year, but an exact date was not given.
