Marauders – Review

Although the build I played in May seemed a bit barebones and lacking certain features, it left me excited for the games official release, and now that the game is out in early access to the public, it is a great time to go back and revisit the game to see what improvements have been made in the last few months. Marauders is a new game developed by Team 17 and Small Impact Games.

It’s hard to look at Marauders and not think of Escape From Tarkov; in fact, the game’s space setting has earned it the nickname “Starkov” among some fans. As a result of excessive industrialization, many people on Earth in the Marauders’ universe have been forced to seek refuge in the galaxy. Players don the gear of space mercenaries known as “Marauders” and command their ships through dangerous regions of the galaxy in an attempt to scavenge what they can and stay alive by any means necessary. Marauders’ central premise and gameplay loop entails hopping on a server alone or with friends, boarding a spaceship to travel to specific locations within the system, docking at those locations, and stealing whatever equipment you can get your hands on. However, even reaching an installation in Marauders is no easy task, as your spaceship is constantly under threat from both other players and the game’s AI. Thankfully, your spaceship is upgradable, so you can improve your odds once you’ve put in the necessary grind.

Once you’ve located an installation on the map, you’ll have the opportunity to decide which items from your inventory you’d like to use to infiltrate the facility. If you perish, you’ll lose everything you brought with you, so this decision is especially important. After deciding on a loadout, players must venture outside their ships in search of salvageable items; this is where the tension really begins, as players have only 25 minutes’ worth of oxygen and must contend with a wide variety of enemies, including AI soldiers, escaped prisoners, and other players all trying to do the same thing: return to their ships as quickly as possible. Successfully completing a mission and returning to your ship with any salvage at all is a daunting challenge, especially when playing alone. However, if you are able to do so, you will be rewarded with either better gear with which to complete future missions or currency with which to buy equipment from the game’s many merchants. You can earn even more in-game currency by completing daily contracts if you so choose. However, in my experience, most of these contracts had extremely high difficulty levels, making them impossible to finish without a strong team comprised of players with a lot of cumulative experience.

The aesthetic of the game is a mashup of World War II and steampunk, with most of the settings looking like they were taken straight out of a submarine from that era. Many of the firearms date back to World War II, though more contemporary firearms like the M16 can be found among them as well. The environments are sometimes a little sparse, but the textures throughout the game are well rendered and keep the environment more interesting, so the game won’t win any awards for its graphics despite doing a competent job rendering the kind of environments you would expect in a game like this. The game’s audio is incredibly sparse, which makes things more tense when you’re ransacking installations because it forces you to focus on your surroundings, such as the sounds of other players’ footsteps. However, it’s a minor annoyance that players’ footsteps can sometimes seem too loud even when they’re further away than you expect, which can confuse you when you’re trying to ascertain where other players are. Sadly, the game’s audio isn’t the only problem; it also has a number of bugs, some of which are minor and others of which are more grating. Other players and enemy AI can appear in front of you seemingly out of nowhere, and when you fire at them, your bullets seem to go straight through them, allowing them to mow you down unfairly. There are also issues where the AI gets broken and stares at walls while you fire at them, rather than turning around and returning fire.

Although Marauders is notoriously challenging, especially when played solo, it can be incredibly satisfying when played with a strong team. It’s to be expected that an early access game like Marauders will have some rough spots, but the game has a solid foundation to expand upon, especially if the more egregious bugs are fixed in a timely manner. If you enjoy games like Tarkov and have a good crew of friends, Marauders is worth checking out. However, if you’re going in alone, you might want to hold off for a while until the more severe bugs have been fixed.