We get back into the skin of the most famous predator in science fiction thanks to the open beta of Predator: Hunting Grounds, the new from the creators of Friday the 13th: The Game, for PS4 and PC.
After a long season without receiving video games starring this fearsome alien creature, Predator has passed through the hands of Illfonic to offer us an experience adapted to current times, in the form of an asymmetric multiplayer shooter. This new proposal developed in collaboration with 20th Century Fox will be available next April 24 for PS4 and PC, but the recently launched open beta has allowed us to get a good idea of what to expect when it goes on sale.
Soldier or Predator
In addition to putting ourselves in the shoes of Predator, the open beta allowed us to experience the action of this title from the point of view of a military squad. And it is that Predator: Hunting Grounds will be set in the world of the science fiction saga with which it shares a name. This will mean that, as in the movie series, we will travel to a jungle, specifically Overgrowth, located deep in the mountains of South America. There, we will have to face the forces of the Stargazer Project, a command that aims to discover alien technology to achieve a series of benefits.
We, whether in the skin of the military squad or the Predator, will have to prevent them from achieving their objective. If you play as a soldier in the military squad, we will be immersed in games in which we will have to carry out a series of random missions. Up to three in total per game, Hunting: Predator Grounds will boast in this regard by offering a wide variety of objectives that will have to be accomplished while facing both command and player to control the lethal predator.
All this with the action that characterizes any shooter and the different possibilities in terms of weapons, classes and customization. As for the first ones, the options will increase as you level up, as will the improvements for these. In the case of classes, there will be a total of four in the game, although only three were available in the beta: Assault, Scout and Support. All these options will have to be taken into account when arming, because, depending on the missions, one strategy or another will have to be followed, just as if we played as if we were a Predator.
The player who steps into the shoes of this hunter of humans and other aliens will have no other objective than to destroy the four players who are part of the military squad. To do this, you will have a series of classes with their own advantages and disadvantages: hunter, explorer and berserker. Whichever one is chosen, it will have to be complemented with the arsenal, among which you can choose to use the classic plasma cannon that we have seen so many times in the movies, a smart disk, the CombiStick, among others, the last two and others being available only when leveling up.
Hunt or be hunted
If we were talking about strategy, it is because the map, which we have only found as a negative point that is all the time, will offer a great variety of locations, which will allow us to face each conflict in different ways depending on the classes and the arsenal of our squad, as well as the needs of the moment. The action will be different for the players who control the Predator, since he can make use of the trees to spot and attack his victims.
As expected, the most interesting thing about Predator: Hunting Grounds is playing as a Predator, because doing it like any other soldier feels the same as in any other similar shooter. The alien has a series of characteristics that make him relentless when facing him. So much so that, at least in the first levels, it is almost impossible to finish him, unless the player who controls him does not do it well or the entire squad ends him in a coordinated way.
At this point, it should be noted that, although the experience of handling the alien is tremendously fun, jumping at high speed through the trees and tearing human characters to pieces; The freshness that doing that during the first few games can offer could disappear in a short time, so the new Illfonic has an important mission ahead when it goes on sale: maintaining interest in your title in the long term, just as they do other games in the genre.
Will he get his trophy?
Announced almost a year ago, in what was the second State of Play to date, Predator: Hunting Grounds is about to see the light of day. Very soon, we will have it available on both PS4 and PC. This time, we have been able to enjoy a small part of the game on the PlayStation console, where, graphically, it looks correctly, although without highlighting too much. Worthy of mention is the soundtrack, because it could not be more accurate, composed, among others, by which is, without a doubt, one of the most famous songs of science fiction cinema, and that, if we had managed to get it out of our heads , it will go back in without costing you too much, as it will sound over and over again during loading screens.
In short, the newest of the most famous alien predator promises to be an interesting proposal, although it will have to fix certain aspects if it wants to finish convincing us. To those already mentioned as the imbalance of forces between the squad and the Predator, which we hope will be solved as the level rises; pairing problems should be added. During the beta, we were barely able to play a dozen games, since they put us in one after waiting approximately fifteen minutes, which was quite desperate if you consider that everything could end in a matter of a few minutes. All in all, we are looking forward to diving deep into the jungle and discovering how far it really goes.
