Storm Divers

Arcade lives on in Housemarque's familiar-feeling battle royale.

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Arcade or no arcade, there is still the occasional glimmer of the old Housemarque in Stormdivers. Yes, it’s a thirdperson battle-royale shooter in the same mould as Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, as we drop into the map and methodically work our way through buildings looking for weapons and supplies. But soon, we begin to notice the telltale signs of the well-respected Finnish studio: Alpha’s brilliant short-range teleport, for instance. The ability is at once offensive and defensive, catapulting Alpha about 20 feet across the map. One moment, we’re using it to evade fire: the next, we whip past another player in a helix of particle effects and pump a shot into the back of their head.

“That teleport is sort of the closest thing we have as a basic moveset for a Housemarque game,” lead gameplay designer Tommi Hartikainen says. “It’s sort of teleport-slashdash move which we have in pretty much all our games.” We set a marker and release a key to fling ourselves out of danger and into a better attacking position – and the swirl of dazzling sparkle that accompanies it is pure Resogun, a welcome flash of technomancy in a drab environment. “This is a feel we’ve been perfecting for a long time, specifically with arcade games,” says head of publishing Mikael Haveri. “We always took pride in making sure that we have the gameplay side of it nailed, and then the visual things are the reward, if you will. We’re entering a larger environment where people are already doing similar things, so we need to stay true to all of the Housemarque legacy standards.”

There’s significant pressure to do so. The concept of