Hood: Outlaws & Legends
Sumo Digital / Focus Home Interactive
There are hardly any PvPvE (player vs. player vs. enemy) games on the market, at least any of particular note. When someone mentions PvPvE, the first thing that comes to mind for most people is Hunt: Showdown. And gamers that crave for PvPvE are so desperate to play a game in the genre, they’re willing to put up with playing Hunt: Showdown even though it has been in development for many years and still only has very limited content in terms of different maps and enemies.
Sumo Digital has recently joined the PvPvE fray with its own attempt, called Hood: Outlaws and Legends. The only way I can describe it as is an odd blend of Hunt: Showdown and For Honor—kinda. The setting for Hood: Outlaws and Legends is a medieval one and you do indeed have to fight against AI opponents, as well as other players.
You get to play as one of four types of outlaws who seek to murder the rich, make off with their loot, and (sometimes) give it to the poor. Concept-wise, it’s a pretty clever idea for a game but suffers from a few issues.
The primary goal is to locate wherever the Sheriff of Nottingham is on each map, stealthily steal his keys (he can’t be killed because of his super-heavy armor), and make your way to the vault. Once there, you unlock it, grab the treasure chest within, and attempt to get it loaded on a winch-based lift and then onboard a ship.
While attempting to achieve any of these tasks, you’ll have to take out many different State guards that roam the maps. At any point, you may come into contact with the enemy team and player-on-player duels occur (or assassinations).
One thing that I really like about Hood: Outlaws and Legends are that its maps are very large and have interesting designs. They have multiple levels for verticality/sniping fun and even an underground area in one of them. They’re also all very detailed. However, the State forces that roam the maps aren’t that varied.
Also, the fact that there are only four types of characters to choose from and this is a 4v4 game, means you’ll run into characters that look exactly like you. Not only are these characters same-y, but they also have the same names and personality descriptions, and you can’t customize them enough to differentiate them from one another—it’s pretty immersion-breaking to be going up against clones of yourself.
You have the familiar character archetype classes here, such as the ranged specialist, tank, support, and melee. Combined with the varied ways your team can orchestrate stealthy approaches and assaults, in theory, this could make for a lot of fun. Unfortunately, if you’re playing with randoms they’ll just run off and do their own thing.
And if you’re playing with friends who are going up against a team of randoms, most likely the other team will simply rush the objectives while you and your buddies carefully plan every move you make. In other words, while teamwork is gently encouraged (the game comes with VOIP), it isn’t hard-baked into the game’s mechanics—it doesn’t penalize or inhibit players from simply going Rambo.
Hood: Outlaws and Legends is purportedly going to be getting more characters and additional maps as well, but it would have made much more of an impact if Sumo Digital would have taken more time developing the game before release.
As it stands, Hood: Outlaws and Legends has an intriguing concept, excellent graphics, and great environments, but it quickly becomes stale because of its general lack of content and lack of true teamwork mechanics (i.e. having to rely on other characters to advance). We’ll see if they can right this storm-rocked ship.
RATING: 7.3/10
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