The test
With Hood: Outlaws & Legends, the English studio Sumo Digital and the French publisher Focus Home Interactive undoubtedly hold an interesting concept. Lately, the game’s trailers have been able to intrigue a good number of players, attracted by the promise of a multi experience integrating a strong infiltration component. Not totally deceptive but not totally honest either, these mouth-watering trailers ultimately set the bar a little too high. We will see that there is still a little work to be done to turn Hood into a truly exciting product.
“Steal the key to the vault. Find the vault. Extract the safe.” It is by these three sentences that you will be systematically greeted at the launch of a game of Hood: Outlaws & Legends. It is indeed around these three stages that the main game mode revolves … and almost unique, but we will come back to this point later. Concretely, two teams of four players compete to accomplish these objectives (there is a single key, a single vault and a single safe), the presence of many guards controlled by the AI adding a little spice to the recipe. The characters that we can control are quite logically four in number, and are relatively differentiated and complementary. Deadly at a distance but vulnerable in close combat, Robin the ranger shoots with a bow (fast or charged shot) while his ultimate ability allows him to unleash an explosive arrow. Adept at stealth, Marianne the Huntress uses a crossbow and can neutralize guards from any angle. Her unique power of Veil also allows her to move without being seen, until she attacks. More versatile, Tooke the Mystic wields a scourge to fight melee while staying out of range of certain enemies. Thanks to his Instinct, he is also able to reveal the position of opponents while healing nearby allies. Finally, John the Slugger takes the role of the thick brute. He deals ultra-powerful hammer blows, can lift harrows, and his “Wrath” grants him temporary increased health and stamina. So much for the casting, which is quite pleasant.
These four archetypes are indeed very manageable, and they evolve in settings rather pleasing to the eye. Moreover, the games using the Robin Hood universe being rather rare, this particular context is inevitably welcome. Multi game requires the universe is a little underexploited, but we still find some traces in the rules of the game. So the first step is to steal a key held by a terrifying Sheriff. Much less likable than the bear in the Disney version, this armored giant will kill you in one hit if he catches you. Approaching it from behind to steal the precious sesame is therefore essential. As for the famous maxim “stealing from the rich to give to the poor”, it translates into play by the possibility at the end of the game to distribute the money collected as you wish, on a Scales of Justice whose two plates correspond respectively to your personal purse and your haunt.
STEALING FROM THE RICH TO GIVE TO YOURSELF
Your generosity therefore has its limits since, in both cases, these separate grants allow you to directly or indirectly improve your heroes. It is indeed possible to unlock additional passive skills depending on your level, but also to buy more powerful weapons and more fitting outfits. The rest of the Robin Hood “lore” is accessible through a few texts hidden in sub-menus. There was room for improvement on this point, and we can not help but feel some frustration with the total lack of single player campaign. Moreover, we can also regret the lack of multiplayer modes. There is certainly the possibility of choosing between Burglary or Training, but the second mode is only a 100% AI variation of the first which, for its part, involves two human teams. The parts therefore tend to all look alike. “Steal the key to the vault. Find the vault. Extract the safe.” : we were warned! Fortunately, the concept holds water because playing as a team is really important.
It is possible to mark enemies and points of interest for our teammates, a wheel allows them to quickly give them some simple orders (“defend me”, “go here”, “attack”, “come to me”), and it is essential to capture the points of reappearance, in order to be able to return as quickly as possible to the places of confrontation. Of course, a good synergy between the different players is also important to overcome the weaknesses of each archetype. Melee Heroes can parry some attacks but are vulnerable at range, while stealthy characters die with a close hit but can attack from afar. Other more subtle differences exist, such as the fact that John is able to carry the chest faster than the other heroes. But once the gold coins are brought from the vault to the extraction point, the game is far from over. It is then necessary to operate a crank, with one or two players, for very long seconds and to defend the zone as well as possible against the attacks of the opposing team, and the possible arrival of the Sheriff and some guards.
TOO DISCREET INFILTRATION …
What about the infiltration into all of this then? We have already seen that you have to steal the key from the Sheriff at the start of the game, but what about the stealth palette? Well, it is possible to crouch in the bushes to hide, to approach the soldiers from behind to assassinate them all at once, to escape the vigilance of the guards by not staying too long in their field of vision, to unlock alternative paths, and even to distract the patrols by whistling or throwing stones. This panoply is revealed at the height of a real infiltration game, but in practice it is unfortunately underexploited. The very structure of the game means that these discrete actions are used mainly at the start of the game, when each team is only pitted against artificial opponents. But as soon as human players get together in one place, the action usually gets a lot more basic. This is in part due to John’s overkill, which many players favor because he hits hard and holds up for a long time. So there is clearly a balancing issue, even if it happens from time to time that matchmaking gives us competent teams, which use infiltration abilities throughout the game.
There are also complaints about this automatic partner search function. While she has the good taste of being cross-platform, she still has a tendency to create uneven teams where level 48 veterans rub shoulders with level 3 noobs. This problem could certainly subside over time if players are found to be sufficiently numerous, but this is not the only thing to be corrected. We indeed encountered on several occasions a very annoying bug, which forced us to immediately quit the current game since the screen became almost entirely black, only the interface elements deigning to be displayed. With only one game mode and only five maps, the lack of content is also regrettable. But then again, the future may well fix things as the developers have already promised several free improvements in the coming months, including new maps, new game modes, cosmetics and “gameplay additions.” “. Case to follow!
