Laser League - First Look

We had a look at Roll7's Laser League all the way back at E3 2017, and after internal tests aplenty the developer has now released the game in early access this month for fans to enjoy, and we've been taking a look at it. There's been laughter, tears, expletives, and so much more, but now comes the time to take a step back, think about what we've played, and ask ourselves whether what we've seen of the game bodes well for the future.

If you don't know anything about what Laser League is, it's a multiplayer game in which you take control of one person in an arena, and in teams of various sizes your task is to eliminate the opposition. Simple, right? Well, not quite, as you can move between walls in the arenas (so exiting the left side will spit you out on the right) and there are of course lasers to consider as well, which are activated in your team's colour once you step on them, which then proceed to move around the map at different angles. Touching a laser of your own colour is fine, but touching a laser of the opposite colour will kill you. And there you have the basics.

The maps are varied enough already, but we're sure there are more on the way. For now though we have the Empire Campus in the UK, Geng Hao Megaplex in China, and Silvertip Arena in Detroit USA, and within these you can customise the arena to have differently calibrated lasers, with some having them around the border while others feature them more sporadically around the map.

There are a plethora of classes to choose from on top of the maps too. Blade, for instance, lets you perform a dash attack towards your enemies to kill them if you connect, while Smash provides a non-lethal tackle perfect for knocking people into lasers. Ghost has the invulnerability ability, whereas Thief has an area-of-effect (AOE) skill to steal laser nodes (where the lasers originate from). Then we have Snipe, which has a ranged teleport attack, and Shock, with an AOE stun attack, incapacitating enemies for a short period of time.

We found each of these classes to be satisfying in their own way, and as studio director Simon Bennett told us recently, the guys at Roll7 are happy with the balance, which has clearly been worked on for months. Each class has their own distinct advantage, and as such you'll probably see players trying all of them out, which is exactly what we did. Of course, everyone will have favourites, but it all feels balanced and fair when in the game.

The catch here is that these abilities need to charge for each class, and so it's not as if you can just spam attacks. In fact, you can't directly kill people in the game unless your ability allows for it, so you'll often find yourself walking alongside your adversaries around the map, scrambling to activate laser nodes for your team. This puts the emphasis on using the map and your abilities to your advantage.

You also need to use the powerups which drop on the map, as these can have a significant bearing on events. Drain, for example, robs your opponents of whatever is in their ability bar, meaning they can't use any of their skills. Then there are others that break the laser walls into pieces, freeze the moving lasers, or potentially even speeding them up.

While this all sounds really simple on paper - focus on lasers, charge your attacks, and use powerups - calm and reasoned thinking goes out the window when you jump into a match and the action gets going. Of course you need to think tactically, but you'll also find yourself frantically scurrying around the map dodging lasers, making aggressive moves, or simply cowering at a safe distance if you need to. The many moving lasers are bad enough, but when you consider that both you and your foes can move to the opposite side of the map at any given moment thanks to the teleporting walls, then it all becomes very hard to anticipate.

That's the beauty of it though; the fact it's easy to learn in principle but very hard to master, and even the most veteran of players may well get surprised when a mysterious player appears out of the wall behind them, activating a laser to kill them to shatter their dreams. Every match turns into a tense back and forth as people weigh up whether to play aggressively or focus on survival - complicated further if there are dead bodies to revive or (if they're the opposition) defend - and you can often have matches where there's just no telling which way it's going to go. This unpredictability seems to put everyone on a level playing field, which is a really nice touch.

We played 2v2 and 3v3 matches online during our time in Laser League and we found the matches ran smoothly in our experience. There was virtually no lag in any of the games we played (which is good considering any such lag would make such a chaotic game a major frustration), and it all ran smoothly. You can play locally too, which is an added bonus, as obviously this game's better with friends to yell at rather than sitting on your lonesome.

All of this is complemented by a sleek and impressive UI, with useful tutorials to boot, and we'd recommend Laser League to anyone who likes easy-to-learn but hard-to-master multiplayer fun. It's got an unusual appeal to it that mixes tactically planning with frantic gameplay, and you'll soon find yourself sucked in for 'just one more game'. The future's looking bright for Laser League, and we're looking forward to seeing what's next.