There is a concept in business called “fast follow-up.” The idea, essentially, is that one company shows off a product it’s working on, and another imitates it and releases its version quickly, capitalizing on the buzz and beating the original to market. Bodycam, made by the two-person team at Reissad Studio, is very similar to Unrecord, a first-person shooter from the perspective of a police body camera that has attracted a lot of attention for its exceptionally realistic graphics . This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – for example, Fortnite’s addition of a PUBG-style battle royale was a literal game-changer. Unfortunately, this is not the case with Bodycam. While it’s an interesting proof of concept in its early access phase, it has too many design blind spots to still be a good shooter.
The idea behind Bodycam is creative, and the mix of a rounded lens, dust on the glass, and brutal movements does a good job of selling the vibe of real police-style footage. It pairs well with high-quality textures, dense debris, and lush foliage to create a visually impressive game. The lighting effects in particular are excellent, with a wide range from pitch-black corridors to blinding flashlights, heavily factoring into strategy in the team-based modes.
Unfortunately, the concept just isn’t ideal for a competitive first-person shooter, as you gain nothing from having a worse view of the world. This makes locating and shooting enemies more difficult, and it doesn’t contribute to the experience thematically. The police aren’t looking through a camera when they’re actually involved in a shooting, and since you’re not actually playing as a law enforcement officer, it says nothing about the state of the police. It’s also a little strange how aiming down sights means your character raises the gun towards their chest to be in front of the body camera, not in front of their eyes. I can see how this perspective would work really well for something like a horror game; the time spent wandering around in the dark and deciding if and when to risk giving away my location by turning on my flashlight to see is quite captivating. Here, however, it feels gimmicky and non-immersive.
That said, the fundamental shooting mechanics are solid. Bodycam is the classic example of a pixel shooter: as soon as you see a single exposed pixel of the enemy, you open fire, hoping that you beat them to the end. It only takes one well-aimed bullet to kill or be killed, and even a handful of less precise shots are enough to send you to an early grave. I like that it creates opportunities to win engagements through smart positioning and anticipation rather than raw shooting skills, and it’s especially important to lean carefully into corners instead of running and to pull. Ultimately, whether you’re a fan of instant kills or not is a matter of taste, but just know that this isn’t a shooter that offers any margin for error.
It takes a certain level of skill to compensate for the fact that weapons tend to have a lot of kick, making accuracy difficult if you rely on autofire. It’s a realistic element that makes it particularly satisfying to eliminate other players in rapid succession.
I just wish the movement was better. I’m sure this is partly due to the disconnected way the characters’ arms and bodies move independently of the body camera itself, but it’s far too easy to get stuck on minor obstacles that litter the hallways, like desks and filing cabinets. With how slow and deliberate the characters are and how quickly it takes to kill, being stopped because your elbow collides with a table is both annoying and potentially deadly. In theory, you can take small obstacles, but in practice, even the smallest step can be a major obstacle to getting your character across, and every second you spend exposes you to deadly fire.
It’s a shame, because the six levels currently present in Bodycam are generally quite neat. An abandoned hospital, for example, has a great mix of long corridors and interconnecting offices. The Russian building level is also scary when the built-in day/night cycle decides it’s time for the sun to set. Another is an airsoft arena, with a plywood house model and training dummies in the shape of people that I definitely photographed in a moment of panic when they surprised me as I arrived at the Street corner. The way each level looks and plays differently is effective in avoiding the “been there, done that” feeling after playing the limited selection of three game modes, at least for a little while.
Not ready for competition
Team deathmatch is my favorite way to play Bodycam. Up to 10 players are divided into teams and given the same weapons, but this equipment is randomized after each round and the first 10 wins. Maybe you all have pistols one time, but shotguns another time. It’s a unique take on a tried-and-true shooter mode, and the fact that each round is kill-based, with no respawning, increases tensions considerably. The times when I carefully weave through lanes, sharing responsibility for checking turns with a teammate, do a great job of scratching that tactical itch.
When you die, you respawn as a drone for the rest of the round, giving you the chance to either watch things unfold or scout out the other team’s positions. It’s pretty fun to turn on your drone’s flashlight and spot the enemy, doing your best to avoid being shot down by annoyed opponents.
Unfortunately, the standard deathmatch is a bit of a disaster. Respawns are quick and it’s all about racking up kills, which completely removes tense tactical action from the equation. Worse, the spawns are terribly managed. Each time you die, it’s essentially a dice roll as to whether your next life will start looking down the barrel of a gun, and it’s common to go multiple lives without having time to make a only step before being shot down. It’s in dire need of a major overhaul, and as it’s the only single-player game mode, Bodycam doesn’t have much to offer those who prefer to go it alone.
Bodybomb, on the other hand, has a team attempting to plant and defend a bomb, somewhat similar to Counter-Strike or Call of Duty’s Search and Destroy. The biggest difference here is that the bomb can be planted anywhere, but the detonation timer duration decreases the further you decide to place it in enemy territory. It’s a good concept, but one that doesn’t work extremely well in practice. The main problem is that it’s too easy for the bomb squad to just immediately arm themselves and then set up camp to guard all the paths leading there. In my experience, it’s rare for the explosive team not to score when this happens, which sucks all the competitive energy out of the game.
The other problem – which is universal across all modes – is that it simply takes too long. A single match can easily last 30 minutes, which seems like an eternity in a small team shooter like this. There have been many times where I would have loved to come in for a quick match before doing anything else, but the time required just doesn’t allow it. Worse, because it uses peer-to-peer connections instead of servers, if the host stops or disconnects at any time – no matter how far along the game is – the match ends. This is unfortunately an all too common occurrence, especially when the host is on the losing side of a match.
Assuming you can complete your match, your ranking will increase or decrease on the simple ranking system, giving you a goal to aim for. This works as intended, except in Deathmatch, where only one person wins – you can finish with a very good kill-to-death ratio, which puts you in second place, while still moving down the ranks. Giving positive progress to early finishers is quite common in other shooters and seems like a strange omission here.
The other thing you can level up is your cosmetics. Match performances (like wins) and wins earn you R Points which you can spend on any of 11 cosmetics for sale. That’s 11 total cosmetic products available at any given time, not 11 categories. You can purchase the shirt for sale or the unique hat option. Hopefully the store will expand with future updates, but I can’t help but wonder what’s the point of having a store if there’s so little to choose from. It’s updated daily, but things are so expensive that it’s easy for the nicer options, like a single gas mask, to get mixed up before you can save up for it. The R4 000 it would take to buy a backpack, for example, represents several hours of work. There’s some text in the menu that says you can pay R Points to save time, but that’s not really true; As of this writing, there is no mechanism for purchasing points, just earning them in-game, which adds to the feeling that the store simply isn’t ready, even for early access.