From the outside, Supervive looks like many top-down twin-stick style shooters you can see at any digital game store. It only takes a few minutes after stumbling upon its massive Battle Royale-style map to see that it does more than just look like a beautifully modeled and animated computer action game you may be familiar with, but that it combines elements from many games across many genres to create a completely unique battle royale, with a surprising amount of things to learn and do in each session aside from surviving against other teams. Enemy encounters are frenetic thanks to a focus on fast, varied movement styles and cleverly designed characters with abilities that interact with each other and their surroundings in far more interesting ways than simply dealing damage.
These so-called hunters are really the first place I was particularly impressed with Supervive. Of the 14 that were available to me, all of them had completely different game plans from each other to succeed in combat. Some characters were obviously pretty weird from the get-go, like that crowd controller that throws a black hole, but even ones that would be relatively simple in any other game had a feature that really made them pop. Huntress, for example, is the bow wielder, meaning she has attacks you’d expect from that archetype – like being able to fire a large arrow at longer range or an array of arrows in an area in front YOU. But she can also move through walls like an X-Man, making her much more elusive than one might expect for a character who has to take longer to aim relatively slow shots.
Support or utility-focused fighters are very effective during active combat. Pushing enemies with a rapidly expanding wall or rushing to fallen comrades to save them from execution are just some of the small ways in which Supervive freshens up a typically more passive role. In fact, no matter who you choose, whether it’s a ranged shooter or a frontline puncher, you will have some sort of movement and movement ability, which means you can always reposition yourself to avoid enemy attacks or directly disrupt your opponents. Smooth movement around the map and in, out, and through combat, combined with the many ways you can abruptly move your enemies out of position, into walls, or even into each other, make this game so noticeably different other tactical games like League. of Legends or Battlerite from which it draws a lot of inspiration. You can be elusive and aggressive in the same move, which feels more like fighting game shenanigans than would be typical in a shooter like this. Most characters don’t need to wait for the right opening, they can create one themselves.
Before you even get into open combat with enemies, you’ll probably need to find them first. Supervive’s massive map is dense with regions that hide treasures within them. In the sessions I had, after choosing a location on the map and dropping it off, there was always a small scouting period where we had to check our surroundings for opportunities to get some loot or experience. Our first encounters were usually with groups of NPC monsters wandering around the premises or camped out in corners waiting for unsuspecting players. These monsters were rarely more than a nuisance on their own, but higher-level bosses can test your team’s might, and any mob camps stuck between fights between enemy teams can often be a factor. The map has a day and night cycle that spawns monsters more frequently at night and upgrades them in the morning, making longer games much more dangerous in theory. In practice, they were rarely anything more than simple ways to stay above the loot and level curve without killing other players.
When you’re not battling the local wildlife, you can also find important points of interest on the map that can prove very valuable. Bonfires are early game hubs that allow you to repair your shields and upgrade your items. As you navigate the map, you can also return to it by pressing a button to regroup. Safes were also often a top priority, as they contained top-notch material, so as long as you could survive the test they would pounce on you to unlock them. Passive gear can be a bit confusing without spending a lot of time in Supervive to figure out the best stat combinations for your character (or getting advice from the developers like I did). Active equipment can take many forms, such as building walls that only your team can pass through, summoning creatures to carry out your orders, or creating a giant cannon that deploys giant cats whose purpose is yet to be determined . I really enjoyed finding a new item and obsessing over it throughout a match, but that’s another difficult thing to max out without a lot of matches under your belt.
The map itself, aside from being filled with a handful of different environments like desert sands, dilapidated ruins, and snowy hills, is divided into islands separated by gorges that will lead to your death if you fall above. When exploring, navigation is a breeze thanks to a glider with generous float time. A simple double jump feels like an Evel Knievel stunt when enemies are nearby, as a single touch from them will send you crashing out of the air and into oblivion. When knocked down onto solid ground, you are transformed into a will-o’-the-wisp awaiting a more concrete resurrection or death, and while you cannot be harmed by enemy attacks, you can be pushed around, making you an easy target . for being kicked off the ledges. Many fights begin with one team attempting to strategically fly across a landmass while another hogs the edges to keep them away, and many fights end with one team attempting to push another into the void.
This, combined with the fact that the maps were littered with multi-level walls and boards, meant that simply strafing around each other in a pitched battle on flat terrain was rarer than pushing each other into obstacles and use them as tactical opportunities to confront each other. It was very rare to see two or more teams compete without any member of each side being eliminated. Getting killed was a pretty common occurrence, but there are so many ways to come back to life that I never felt like I was doomed to twiddling my thumbs and watching the rest of the game for very long. This always meant that if you left even one member of a team standing, they were a beacon of team revival or a most wanted elimination, preventing their entire team from being put back on the map and balance the odds. For me, a generally pretty average person in battle royales, this was a great way to give myself as many chances as possible to redeem myself.
I had a lot of fun with my playtime, but I couldn’t stop one question from nagging me in this chaos: Is another live service game dead on arrival, regardless of its quality ? I asked CEO Joe Tung if the video game industry’s wild mood swings posed an existential threat to Theorycraft’s ambitions with Supervive. “It’s absolutely an existential fear,” he responded. “And I think if someone says they’re not afraid of that, they must have a reality distortion field that I don’t have.” He admits it’s a tough time to release a game, especially in a free-to-play games-as-a-service business model that gets more and more crowded with each quarter. But with many externalities that are difficult to predict and cannot control, Joe believes Theroycraft has positioned itself from day one to weather as many storms as the world throws at it. He credits the timing of their fundraising – late 2020 to 2021, when investors were more willing to spend on prospects – and the commitment to an entirely remote team as a way to court the best talent he could find as part of the strategy that gives them a lot of extra runway to make sure they land that plane, even if it’s not immediately a smashing success.
With only about an hour of spins under my belt, I still have a lot to learn about Supervive. It’s a battle royale full of ideas, and some of the inspirations are pretty easy to identify – many games like this have big maps with hot spots that are worth fighting for high-tier loot . But when it innovates on its own, like with its roster of dynamic, expressive characters, and its many tactical options presented by its exciting movement system and roster of active and passive items, there’s no game like him. If you’re an Apex Legends fan who loves the unique flavor each character brings to a standard FPS, an Overwatch fan who loves objective-driven team play, or a League of Legends fan who values tactics in its team skirmishes, you might want to spend some time with Supervive’s first big open playtest, which runs through July 4. You might be as surprised as I was that so many core concepts from seemingly different games blend together so well into one colorful package.