DUE PROCESS

The joke is that you don’t get it

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Due Process’s developers are not the first (nor will they be the last) to look at Counter-Strike and think there’s maybe another, more exciting, way to do things. The king of the competitive FPS is known for its purity, yes, but also its repetition. CounterStrike’s foundation is familiarity. Due Process is built on the unexpected.

The basic elements are similar: two teams of five, a bomb (already ticking) to defuse and an assortment of guns that, with a few exceptions, slot into those AK-47 and AWP slots. Each match consists of six rounds, going to overtime in a tie, with each side playing three on attack (cops) and three as defence (bombers). In this style of game, the maps are always a battle-tested rotation of favourites. In Due Process, they’re a curated selection of procedurally-generated environments that are updated weekly, each with its own minor variants and the effect is a pool so large it’s impossible to memorise. That’s the magic here. Players used to familiar maps and reliable techniques are flung into a tactical maelstrom, with each round having a minute-and-a-half setup time when teams must gear up, look at the map and agree on that round’s strategy.