ひげ
Just found out that the console server for Blacklight Retribution was shutdown on August 31st, marking the complete end of the game.
BLR was an incredibly awesome and unique game, from its gameplay to its audio to its monetization. There is nothing quite like it.
I played hundreds if not thousands of hours of this. Back when the game was newer and much more popular, I even got invited to be on a comp team but had to decline.
If you never played, you really missed out. I hope there will be another game like it some day.
There is an unofficial way to play the pc version still, but it's still a bit janky and obscure so there aren't a lot of people playing it unfortunately.
This game is the reason I bought a PS4, since I played a lot of the original game, Blacklight Tango Down, on the PS3 and the computer I had at the time wasn't good enough to run BLR. For a good month or two, BLR is the only game I had on my PS4 and I played the hell out of it. Really sad to see it go.
@slipgate Gameplay: high TTK with actually impactful headshots. tons of different weapons which actually felt like completely different guns with a high level of customization for them as well as the rest of the gear. mech suits that you could call down from the sky to hop in. AI you could summon to help you. most importantly, a wallhack on a timer that was a core part of the gameplay.
Aesthetic: the audio and visuals all have this unmistakable cyberpunk grunge feel. everything from the camos to the gear to the taunts to the titles all had this awesome, futuristic military dystopia vibe.
Monetization: the game was f2p and pretty much everything could be grinded out with in-game currency. they offered a relatively cheap, permanent doubler for that currency. instead of buying things outright, you could also rent them, meaning if you played the game enough you could keep all your gear rented consistently. renting also helped you decide whether you liked something or not, so you could choose if you wanted to spend in-game or real life money on it beforehand.
here's some awesome gameplay if you want to check out what it was like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q8JxhG33KI
@slipgate oh, forgot to mention something. you can tell from the footage that there is a health bar. your health only regenerates after a while and only up to a certain point, the only way to recover HP other than that is to have health kits which you can equip as gear or buy with points gained from kills/captures/etc.
you can customize your helmet, chest armor, and leg armor. the different gear will give you different values, so some might give you more health but less speed, stuff like that. the customization went hard.
there were even different bullet types that would do stuff like lower your accuracy but poison an opponent or catch them on fire. the fire rounds were awesome for the mechs since they were weak to fire damage. toxic rounds did less damage on the initial hit but did slightly more damage over time, so it was a gamble with whether or not someone could get a health kit before dying. awesome stuff.