‘What if battle royale but boats’ is a pitch I can get behind. I’ve solely performed one spherical of Maelstrom up to now, its hull now refurbished with the extra inviting planks of free-to-play, but it surely gained’t be my final. It’s a slower, extra thought of affair than its land-bound brethren. It seems orcs and goblins construct ships which are far much less squishy than fleshbags, encouraging fights that twist and develop reasonably than sink earlier than they’ve began.
Come, let the salty air of novelty and not-costing-any-money blow away your battle royale fatigue.
As Fraser Brown remarked when he prematurely evaluated Maelstrom final yr, I too like the way you go into every match with a playstyle already in thoughts. Different ships have completely different specialities, like ramming or long-ranged fight. It’s an asymmetry that brings tactical concerns to fights that already revolve extra round thought than intuition. That’s largely as a result of it takes at the least a couple of volleys to punch by a ship’s armour, which is tracked individually for both sides of your ship. Survival means by no means exposing the identical angle for lengthy, whereas profitable sea homicide can rely upon monitoring the place your enemy is already leaking.
You can improve your ships between games, however that’s not the issue you may assume. The sight of a legendary captain requiring an amazing wodge of foreign money initially triggered my coronary heart to sink sooner than one in every of Maelstrom’s pathetic NPC booty ships, however you’ll be able to’t purchase that foreign money with actual cash. The game-affecting upgrades should be earned by enjoying, though you’ll be able to velocity up your unlock progress by paying for a booster. That’s not perfect, however the matchmaker does at the least attempt to put you in opposition to ships of comparable energy.
I’ll depart you with some engaging phrases from Fraser, seeing as he’s a saltier seadog than I.
“It would probably be a nightmare to fight in these ocean arenas if the ships handled at all like ships, but thankfully they don’t. They’re bath toys, gently sitting on the water, ready to scoot across the place with a bit of a push. You don’t need to worry about sails, tacking, jibing or even what the wind’s up to — it’s all about quick maneuvers and pummelling every other ship you see.”
I’m unsure saltier is pirate lingo for ‘more experienced’ both, however let’s roll with it. I’m certain the pirates gained’t thoughts.
Wednesday’s replace additionally fiddled with steadiness, revamping how upgradable crewmates work whereas chucking in further cosmetics. Patch notes are here.
You can obtain Maelstrom without spending a dime from Steam.
