Not exactly, but you could do worse than giving Scavengers a go if you're just not into the big multiplayer games that everyone is playing these days and would rather something different with a respectable player population. Though it's still too early to know whether the game will take off in a significant way, there are already enough players in this early beta stage to enable quick matchmaking at any moment. A respectable player base on a weekday morning portends well for the future; Amazon's Crucible lacked that, and it met an early and inevitable end.

A free-to-play third-person PvPvE multiplayer shooting and survival game, Scavengers is inspired by battle royale and hero shooter tropes. It's a potent concoction of ideas made for those sick of monopolizing popular games like Fortnite or Warzone. Aside from a few balance difficulties and technological hitches that are inevitable at this level of development, this medium-budget game, which only recently got early access on Steam (available on the Epic store), delivers a good, fun experience.

Similar to Apex Legends, Scavengers may only be played in groups of three. When the game begins, nothing stops you from doing what you want, but the opposition that stays together will quickly eliminate any lonesome tendencies you may have. If you don't think that coordination and communication are important, this isn't the place for you to live your next multiplayer experience.

Every squad is a part of the missionary endeavor to our dying Earth, rendered frozen and uninhabitable due to the Moon's devastating asteroid collision and subsequent explosion, akin to terrible Praxis. You and your random friends will need to battle or avoid other players and brave and survive a series of PVE hazards, including snowstorms, wild animals, mutants, and marauders, in order to collect valuable data, your main goal. Mother, a female-voiced AI that tries too hard to emulate the blabbing weirdness of GLaDOS, will be your guide. The playing zone will eventually start to decrease circularly, similar to other battle royale games. This increases the likelihood that you may come across rival teams as they sprint to the finish line.

That "line" is the dropship, and theoretically, everyone COULD finish the trip peacefully since it has plenty of passenger room and a long countdown to liftoff. Basically, when they dump you, practically everyone will desire the items you'll drop since the evacuee with the most data points wins a bonus from the Mother. As a result, greed is the main cause of major shootouts. Many complaints will stem from the mission's unpredictable ending, because you may have a highly profitable run, only to lose most of your stuff because some morons had three minutes to plan an ambush and kill your team. Fortunately, if you take a diversion to the banking installation during the assignment, you can bank the data. However, this is not always handy since you have to dodge the fatal storm before you can think of anything else.

The nicest part about Scavengers is its open-ended gameplay. Alternatively, you could rush to the center of the shrinking map and try to predict the likely location for the dropship's descent where you could focus fire on the people escaping the approaching storm who must run towards you (or freeze to death). Alternatively, you could choose to play by the book, clearing the NPC strongholds and gathering data. It makes sense to take advantage of any chance you have, such as waiting for opponents in the path of an impending storm or jumping opponents who are engaged in combat with expert NPCs. The game feels a lot like Hunt: Showdown in that horrible way. In addition to the large, arena-shrinking storm, there are sporadic mini-storms that cause eyesight impairment and temperature reduction, which must be mitigated by seeking cover. These little storms sometimes coincide with the destruction around dropship, resulting in the most chaotic gameplay that Scavengers have to offer.

Because scavenging is the foundation for almost everything in and outside of the missions, the game is named Scavengers. In between trips, you'll have the chance to study new tools, equipment, supplies, and skills for your characters using the resources you were able to bring back. At first, the procedure is really rapid, but as you go up the levels, it reminds me of old-school mobile timesink games: you have to wait hours for the automatic study to finish, or you have to pay real money to have it done quickly. Tokens (of which you receive three free) will also be unlocked with the use of real money. Every hero has a special skill and a craftable trademark weapon, but what you can discover and make during the quest will also determine what weapons you may use in your armory.

Research is closely linked to crafting and mid-match leveling. You must rely on random loot when you first start playing scavengers in order to obtain the weapons you'll need for the missions. However, after several days of intensive research and development, you'll have a customized arsenal of weapons and consumables that will allow you to partially avoid the grind and concentrate on other things, like hunting other players, right away.

A daring new game called Scavengers boldly attempts to manage many tasks at once. This could be the new multiplayer attraction you've been waiting for, but you'll have to put up with X more months of unbalance, possible server wipes, and other unpleasant shocks. You also need to set reasonable expectations for the future, as the Avengers won't ever have multi-million dollar seasons like Nakatomi Plaza with sponsored mainstream crossovers. It's a brilliant niche game for a smaller audience, and it always will be.