A whopping 17 maps populate the servers across all modes; fan-fave rips of campaign levels such as Bill’s Town, The Beach, The Dam, University, Checkpoint, Suburbs and Water Tower. All of these with the verticality and player bells ‘n’ whistles you’d expect from single player. Listen mode, traps, crouch stealth, cover fire, healing/reviving and your crafting backpack. Essentially a portable in-game store where you can craft offensive/defensive items or buy armor and ammo. A fantastic novelty across the foreboding settings. You will carry up to two weapons of varying degrees (full auto, revolver, shotty, rifle, bow etc) along with skill perks and boosters that you set in your loadouts. A bit of Call of Duty meets Battlefield. You can make it so that you can’t be marked, apply faster crafting, heal others like a medic etc. Your role is yours to create. Some weapons like the overpowered Shotgun are only available as paid DLC BUT, they can be sampled in the preset loadouts.

Gameplay wise, the most popular and arguably the best mode is Supply Run. A 4v4 team deathmatch meets supply grind where you win by taking the opposing team’s 20 shared lives (think tickets in Battlefield) down to 0. Survivor mode is more difficult as once you die you’re out for the rest of that round ala COD Hardcore. No respawns. Interrogation is the least popular. You must capture a random enemy which then reveals the location of a lockbox that you must unlock to win. Stick to Supply Run. Now, taking everything you learned from single player into account, get to work. Try to stay close to at least one partner so that if one of you goes down, one can revive the other before their timer expires or the enemy executes. Anxiety and stress are on tall order here, as Factions is not easy. Veterans have a clear advantage and team balancing is unfortunately…kind of broken. If you’re a level zero and you find yourself up against a group of 999s or any combination of three digit levels, you will lose. Often and with extreme prejudice. This is where the game saves itself by allowing you to still gather supplies for your clan, or focus on completing challenges such as marking enemies or getting downs with a particular weapon. Survive enough hours and you might just find yourself addicted to the Stockholm syndrome. Like a Soulsborne, when you eventually do win, it’s undeniably rewarding.

Tactics-wise, you will find yourself vaulting in and out of houses, on and off of vehicles, sprinting and sneaking all the while. This is a game of headshots where one or two will down you before any clip of body-shots. Know this early and practice your aim with that in mind. Unfortunately the weapons sway, have varying levels of recoil and extremely limited ammo, so there is a lot pushing back against you. You will need to leave your safe space sooner or later to open a supply box or kill an enemy to take their ammo. Melee with a weapon will always beat melee without. Traps can one-shot. The world is dangerous in front of and behind your controller. By this I mean that controls can appear slow and clunky coming from other games. Like going back to Heavy Rain after Detroit: Become Human. You might even snag on the environment here and there, but know that everyone is playing with the same disadvantage for the most part. Experience will usually win, so if you ever find yourself at the end of a match in spectator mode, be sure to study the survivors as you will no doubt learn a thing or two. What may seem like insurmountable odds as a noob can be mitigated as you watch others combine smoke with bombs and various other level 999 tactics. There is a satisfying pop to executions along with pop in graphics and sound, all helping you indulge in the thick atmosphere of your 12 week journey. So even if your k/d ratio isn’t great and your win/loss record isn’t stellar, there’s a surprising amount of enjoyment to be had if you can disconnect that competitive part of your brain and just focus on fun and fervor every now and then.