The hardcore extraction looter genre has been dominated by one game and one game only recently and that’s Escape From Tarkov. Developers have tried to muscle in to get a slice of the pie, only to fail somewhere along the way. However, Small Impact Games, the team behind Marauders, a game that will be getting its first public demo at WASD, believes we’re about to see a whole wave of new extraction shooter games in the near future.
Speaking to The Loadout following an exclusive look at the game, Small Impact’s Cameron Small and James Rowbotham believe we’re “at the precipice of a new genre”. While there are certainly games that cater to that looter shooter experience, none quite nail the experience like Escape From Tarkov – and it’s something these two know has caught the attention of the development world.
“I think we’re going to start seeing other competitive titles crop up soon,” Small says. “I think we’re hitting it at a good point, though. I’m not saying it’s going to be like battle royale and this thing is going to explode and everyone’s going to do it, but I know people are hungry for it.
“I’m sure there are ten teams already working on the genre – and I know of five already.”
Small Impact is banking on this hunger for Marauders, a game which shares some of its core DNA with Tarkov, as well as other shooters like Fear, Vigor, Rust, and DayZ. Although it’s not quite as hardcore as Tarkov, Small admits the team has added in some “leniency”, like making extraction points more visible and simplifying the healing process, to bring new players into the genre.
“We have a diagram of where Marauders lands on the hardcore spectrum,” Small says. “Tarkov is on the far left, Fortnite is on the right, and PUBG is in the middle. We’re just slightly on the left of PUBG in terms of pick up and play, but we’re closer to Tarkov for being unforgiving.”
Small knows that he’s not going to win over the hardcore Tarkov fans, but he wants to give them – and Battlestate “something else to chew on.” “We don’t even want to compete with Tarkov,” Rowbotham adds, “we just want to carve our own space.”
With a game that’s geared up to bring more people into what’s been a somewhat unforgiving genre, Marauders upcoming early access period – especially with its realistic AI – will be an interesting one to watch.