The general consensus on Earthfall is that it’s pretty much Left 4 Dead, but with aliens. And after getting my hands on it, I have to throw my hat into that ring as well.

It’s nice to see things like 4-player drop-in / drop-out in this kind of objective-based horde mode game. And having items in the world for you to place (like barricades and turrets) are a great addition. It’s just that ten years after Left 4 Dead launched, it’d be nice to have something a little more.

Everything about the game is… fine. I don’t have any complaints, but there really isn’t much to praise either. Two things did stand out though. One was combining items, like a barricade and propane tank to make a firewall.

The other (which I didn’t get to see) was that later in your game you start to get weapons that incorporate the alien technology. Beyond that, graphics, mechanics, gameplay and alien design are all generic as fuck.

Maybe I’m a whiny, entitled piece of shit that doesn’t know the first thing about game design or mass production. But I’m also a consumer that’s tired of paying for ‘new’ experiences that end up being carbon copies of shit I played a decade ago.

I’m all for putting your spins, tweaks and additions to others’ creations. After all, good artists copy; great artists steal. But you can’t steal one thing, put a coat of paint on it and call it a day.

How incredible would it be to have Left 4 Dead with aliens, but also Rainbow Six Siege’s unique character abilities; or god, how about Borderlands’ individual skill trees?! (no jokesies, I made myself salivate writing that sentence).

At a $30 price point, I’m not expecting Left 4 Borderlands 3: Alien Siege. But as someone who loves this medium, I would much rather pay three times that for something I haven’t played before. Or at the very least, an evolution of something that I have.

Ultimately, Earthfall will make a fun couple evenings with friends after it becomes a free console game of the month in about a year or two.

And it may help fill a bit of the void that Left 4 Dead 3 has yet to. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to expect much more than that. It’s out on Steam early access now, and comes to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on July 13th.

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M. Hamilton

I write about things when I feel like it. Science, tech, video games and festivals are where it’s at.

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