Many had wondered whether the 1998 classic would ever show its face on the Switch, or any modern gaming service, given its tangled mess of licensing deals. Rare would also announce that the same release will be made available on Xbox platforms via the Xbox Game Pass service. Science-fiction fans shouldn’t pass this world by though, but at least much of the lore can be found outside of the game.During today’s Nintendo Direct presentation, the publisher revealed that one of the most popular Nintendo 64 titles of all time, Rare’s GoldenEye 007, will be heading to the Nintendo Switch Online service at some point in the near future. Procedural generation and multiple endings have been added in to offer some replayability but the gameplay remains the same. Clearly, a lot of time and effort has gone into creating this world, but the turn-based gameplay could have been ripped from a number of existing titles. Some soldiers have special abilities such as counterattacking or doubling movement speed briefly that can be unlocked, but there isn’t anything here you won’t have already seen before.įor as good as the lore and worldbuilding in Phoenix Point is, the generic – and sometimes tedious – gameplay doesn’t back this up properly. As with any post-apocalypse your time will be split between defeating mutated crab-like enemies and human enemies. It does employ a Fallout V.A.T.S.-like system where you can target specific limbs of an enemy but the benefits of doing so are minimal. Other than this though, Phoenix Point is very much your standard turn-based strategy game. It’s a really clever tool that helps demonstrate the mental exhaustion these soldiers can feel as well. Soldiers that drop below zero can start to lose their mind and become panicked on the battlefield. It isn’t so important to keep track of it during the first few hours, but as you progress it becomes essential.

Likewise, killing an enemy or saving a comrade can increase it. Seeing a new monster, a comrade dying or receiving an injury can reduce your overall Will.

Willpower is a very interesting mechanic as it can fluctuate depending on the situations a soldier finds themselves in. Each soldier also has a Willpower bar, along with the standard HP and Stamina bars. You can have a team of up to six soldiers, and permadeath is a factor here. The other major gameplay component is the turn-based strategic stuff that you encounter when you arrive at an explorable destination. In fact, the entire game has this old-school vibe to it, which can also mean that sometimes things feel a bit too basic. Scanning locations will tend to bring up only text detailing your discoveries, which is fine, but perhaps not the most cutting edge. In this respect, Phoenix Point feels very old-school. Players must face up to the ongoing threat of the Pandoravirus, the various factions that have sprung up since and also investigate what has happened to the rest of the Phoenix Project. You are in charge of Phoenix Point, a cell of the wider project. A secretive organisation known as the Phoenix Project gets called in to help oversee the survival of humanity. And now the virus has gone airborne too with a disturbing mist that infects anyone it comes into contact with.Ģ5 years have passed from this initial outbreak, and unsurprisingly, humanity is left on the brink of extinction. As it has melted from the ice caps, the oceans are a hotbed of mutated sea creatures. It is named the Pandoravirus and mutates any animal that comes into contact with it. In Phoenix Point, global warming and the melting ice caps have uncovered an alien virus unlike anything else on earth. From Julian Gollop, the creative designer behind the original X-COM games, comes Phoenix Point, the spiritual successor to his earlier titles.

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