I’ve missed the ridiculous, high-octane fun of the arena shooter, and so has indie studio Reakktor. They’re currently developing Toxikk /i, which aims to capture the glory days of titles like Quake 3 by giving you a rocket launcher and letting you jump about like a kangaroo on steroids.
Here’s the first gameplay trailer. Here’s its rallying cry: ”No classes, no levelling, no loadouts, no iron-sight aiming, no regenerating health, no free-to-play, no bull**. Frag like it’s 1999.”
All the classic features from the arena shooter heyday are here; health pickups, boosters, rocket jumps, optional game mutators and more. Maps range from 8-player to 16-player and there are solo Bots to practice your gibs on.
There’s even some vehicle on vehicle action thrown in for good measure. For those of you frustrated by Quake Live, there’s a strong anti-F2P vibe, with the team saying; “The skill of a player should be the only deciding factor about victory or defeat. Allowing players to buy different (i.e. better) weapons or to permanently boost their stats does totally contradict the idea of classic arena FPS gaming in our opinion.”
I can drink to that. Toxikk looks like a refreshing blast of retro action. Pre-orders are open right now, with various different levels netting you a bunch of extra stuff. The cheapest level starts at $15, with the most expensive coming in at $90.
No word on an expected release date just yet, but a closed Beta for pre-order customers in on its way to Steam at some point in the near future.
