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Become part of an airship crew, take on waves of enemies as a team, and influence faction warfare in 'Guns of Icarus Alliance'. Mar 31, 2017 Guns of Icarus Alliance is the expanded and definitive edition of Muse’s flagship title Guns of Icarus Online, the original player-vs-player steampunk airship combat game. Alliance features all of the content from the original title, but with the addition of player-vs-environment cooperative experiences, an ongoing war between six elite factions vying for control of a world ravaged.
You can never have too much steampunk in your life. The industrial revolution inspired sci-fi aesthetic is always a delight when treated with enough care in fiction and, frankly, the sub-genre’s rarity in big budget gaming (compared to, say, cyberpunk or high fantasy) is a deeply regrettable oversight.It’s one of my favourite worlds to explore in interactive entertainment, and perhaps explains why I’m more of a fan of and than most. Come to think of it, it also goes a long way in explaining why I’m a little bit obsessed with Guns of Icarus Alliance right now, which has more cogs and corsets than you can shake a H.G. Wells novel at. Developer Muse Games’ commitment to the Steampunk cause is admirable, but Guns of Icarus Alliance merits a look-in beyond its anachronistic depiction of old and new, especially now that it’s just made the jump to PS4 after a six year stint on PC.
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The game can be best described as a multiplayer first-person action sim, in which crews of four players pilot a giant airship together, taking part in PvP death matches against other teams or enjoying a broad selection of PvE missions and challenges.Similar to, the survival of your crew’s airship depends on everyone working together like a well oiled, uh, ship, with each member performing their own designated roles encouraged by Guns of Icarus’ class system. Pilots are there to helm the wheel and navigate the ship around any obstacles and into effective battle stances, while the gunner class is best suited for manning the on-board artillery and taking down enemies before they take you down first.Meanwhile, the engineer has arguably the most important role of all; keeping the ship alive and - more importantly - not on fire, by running around the deck and buffing, repairing, or extinguishing various components of the aircraft, including the Balloon component keeping you afloat. If that gets destroyed, you’ll find yourself plummeting towards the ground, and no one wants that.Guns of Icarus Alliance exhibits the kind of unique co-op play you don’t get to see in games very often; all four crew members are experiencing different play styles albeit for the common goal of staying afloat and dominating the competition. Every role brings its own gameplay challenges, and there are layers to each.Gunners will have to destroy an enemy ship’s armour with explosive rounds of ammunition before laying down damage with the machine gun, for example, while the engineer has to contend with several different tools at once, constantly switching between them to cater to what repairs are needed at the time. Pilots probably have the least busy role, and the simple act of steering can fall into monotony at times, but there’s a subtle skill to driving that will hopefully appeal to someone on the team.Things are spiced up more so by the fact that dozens of airship types can be unlocked and customised as you progress your character in Guns of Icarus Alliance, which brings a much needed sense of diversity to the battlefield. The large Galleon warship is one of the most durable vehicles available, for example, but its size and strength comes at a cost to maneuverability for the poor old pilot at its wheel. Meanwhile, the Squid trades in weapon mountings for speed and engine count, making it great for outrunning and weaving amongst other opponents.Though the PvE missions are a respectable way of learning the ropes and testing out your favourite classes and ships, it’s when playing online in a match of up to 32 other players when Guns of Icarus really comes into its own.
As your captain is shouting orders from the helm while a barrage of explosives are raining hellfire down upon your engines, you truly get a sense of the scale that Muse Games has spent years polishing and fine-tuning since the game’s original release on PC.Though Guns of Icarus Alliance has only just come to PlayStation 4, don’t expect it to be looking anything close to a current gen title. As a six year old game, its engine is serviceable at best, designed to run smoothly at all times and accommodate technicalities like longer draw distances, but the graphics are functional, not jaw-dropping.' Guns of Icarus Alliance exhibits the kind of unique co-op play you don’t get to see in games very often.' The better news is that cross-play between PS4 and PC players is fully supported by Muse Games, which will be music to the ears of those who already own the game and have been struggling to find matches on the PC’s dwindling user base.Hopefully Guns of Icarus Alliance can find some new life pumped into its rusty bones now that it’s hit PS4, as there’s real entertainment value lying within that stylistically satisfying steampunk concept.
For PS4 players wanting in on some of that Sea of Thieves-esque interdependent co-op action, this is a great choice, and an even better one if you can find a party of three other friends to join your crew.Want more? Here's our run-down of the you can play right now.
Guns of Icarus Alliance for PS4 and PC is a cooperation-based, action game which places the players in the roles of crew-members aboard steampunk combat airships. Originally, the project was supposed to deliver a DLC expansion for, which would enrich that PvP-focused game with PvE elements, but at one stage in the development process, the creators decided to release Alliance as a separate title offering both new features and the contents from Guns of Icarus: Online. For example, buying Guns of Icarus Alliance on Steam gains the player free access to Guns of Icarus: Online. As in the cases of the previous installments – (otherwise known as Flight of the Icarus) and, the game was developed and published by Muse Games, a studio located in New York.
PlotGuns of Icarus Alliance for PS4 and PC is set in a post-apocalyptic world devastated by an industrial revolution that broke out of control. Blindly following the path of technological development led to the creation of powerful machines that turned the once beautiful planet into a polluted shell of uninhabitable wastelands filled with toxins.The humans barely survived the cataclysm they had brought upon themselves. Only handfuls survived in isolated oases, slowly creating new societies based on different ideologies.
Over time, some of these sanctuaries grew advanced enough to develop their fleets of airships, which allowed for trading with other settlements. It soon turned out however, that shortages of different goods and drastic differences in worldviews have supported piracy and conflicts more than peaceful exchange of goods. The most powerful parties of the world began to organize squadrons of heavily armored and well-equipped combat airships in order to fight for domination.Several major factions are fighting for control over the skies of the devastated world. Those include the religious, class-based society Fjord Baronies, the Order of Chaladon – they live on tropical islands bearing the same name, the Mercantile Guild (an alliance of powerful and ruthless merchants), the citizens of Anglean Republic that love ancient artifacts and advanced technology, the Yesha Empire, which prefers social order and obedience to the law, and the Arashi League, made up of desert tribes loosely united basis.
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MechanicsGuns of Icarus Allience for PS4 and PC delivers a cooperation-based experience. The players gather themselves into crews to complete various missions aboard combat airships; their general goal is to increase the power of the faction they belong to. The crew of each ship comprises of four members – they fulfill roles assigned through their classes: the Pilot, the Shooter, and the Engineer.The main task of the pilot is to fly the airship during battles. Since the field of fire is rather small, an adequate course, speed and height can earn the crew a victory. The Pilot is also the one to choose the right airship and equipment before the battle. The gunner specializes in on-board weapon systems. This class can both carry and load special kinds of ammunition, such as incendiary bullets.
When it comes to the engineers, they repair broken mechanisms of the airships and rebuild components that get destroyed. The Engineer can also extinguish fires and temporarily improve the effectiveness of subsystems (for instance, by increasing engine efficiency or durability of the armor).The players can freely move around the airship's deck and observe the surroundings from the first, or third person perspective. One does not have to be the gunner in order to grab the closest cannon and fire at the enemy. The classes improve the player's capabilities within a certain specialty, but one is not limited to serve one purpose only. The Engineer can take one kind of special ammunition for the battle, as well as three different engineer's tools, while the Shooter takes three different kinds of ammunition and one tool only. Holding the shift button allows to activate a temporary bonus tor the statistics – the bonus depends on the class chosen, so the Engineer can move quicker, the Shooter can becme more effective at using weapons, and the Pilot simply has more control over the airship. Game modesThe game gives an opportunity to fight against others in the PvP mode, but the core of the Alliance version is constituted by PvE components, which include different cooperation-based missions and faction wars taking place on the world map.The game features different kinds of PvE missions: air battles, attacks on convoys, assaults on bases, infiltration, and more.
Completing certain quests affects the conflict between the factions.When members of a faction manage to achieve the so-called Resource Goal (the faction takes control over resources they need), a stage of open war begins. The developers divide factions into alliances, and the players begin to make progress towards the War Goals. When one of the factions achieves victory, both the war and the season end, but the political situation in the game world changes. The results of wars and the achievements of the players have chances to become part of the game's story, which unfolds as the time goes on.
Technical aspectsGuns of Icarus Alliance came out for PS4 and PC thanks to the technology provided by the Unity engine.
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