I have played the first of the shooters with hyper-realistic graphics to hit Steam. Bodycam looks amazing, but also has unique gameplay – Bodycam

I don’t know to what extent we can talk about this as a fad or a possible new subgenre, but among the hundreds of shooter in first person on Steam, in recent times at least two have emerged that have a common pattern: a obsession with hyperrealism that goes even beyond the graphics. One of them is Unrecord, and another is body cam.

They are very similar, but in reality they have nothing to do with each other. Unrecord has been missing from the internet for months after shaking the networks with a trailer so realistic that those responsible had to come forward showing the innards of Unreal Engine 5 to prove that it was not a scam; while Bodycam is a competitive multiplayer which has just landed in early access format in exchange for 29.98 euros.

The latter is signed by just two developers, French brothers aged 17 and 20 heading Reissad Studio. I have had the opportunity to try the first commercial version of the game, and I would say that Bodycam is a most curious experiment: its “honeymoon effect” It is incredibly powerful and it is obvious that its gameplay also has many possibilities, but everything that revolves around the design of the games leaves a lot to be desired.

Is it worth getting this? I prefer not to judge something so soon, knowing that it will evolve a lot over time, but I will tell you that for now it seems like a product to teach more than anything else. Bodycam sells you a very curious experiencewhich you will not find even in many others shooter military who pursue realism; but it still lacks a master hand behind it to lead it along the path of progress. Until then, we’ll have to settle for playing FFA, TDA or some kind of demolition like CS2.

Realism beyond war simulators

We cannot understand Bodycam without first talking about its graphics. As the name suggests, it is an action game presented from the perspective of a tactical camera (e.g. SWIFT/CORE used by some US special forces) that takes hyperrealism very seriously. Those responsible create playable maps from forests and abandoned buildings in real life that appear in the Quixel Megascans catalog.

In case you don’t know them, since the arrival of Unreal Engine 5 and its very high tolerance for polygonal loading, this company has gained a lot of popularity in the field of video games: they scan the world to digitize it in 3D environments using a technique known as photogrammetry. The result in motion is incredible, although with the same sincerity I will tell you that after a few hours you begin to see the seams a little to this section.

It’s a better “complaint”, but the reality is that some modeling is merely correct by our current standards; Some textures have an improvable resolution and when climbing or interacting with the world it is easy to find inconsistencies or modeling that is clipean (they cross surfaces). I insist: it is not as bad as it sounds at all. It’s just that the weight of this is carried on their shoulders by lighting, sound and a thousand visual effects.

Bodycam light It is incredibly faithful to the real world, and is even more impressive in motion: the game reacts easily to stimuli such as flashlights equipped on weapons, the time of day or atmospheric effects. It may sound like just talk, but the reality is that in a game with a slow sense of action and interface-freeyou have to put all your senses on the screen and things like turning on a light or using the radio to communicate with your companions through proximity chat can give away your position.

I’m honest with you when I tell you that I’ve had more than one of those scares that give you a mini heart attack playing Bodycam, and I have the weapons volume adjusted to half because they are as loud as in real life; but without an interface and in the most absolute darkness, being shot at from somewhere you didn’t expect is equivalent to jumpscare of maximum rigor, the kind that you haven’t experienced since you were 15 years old and playing Five Nights at Freddy’s. If you are easily scared like me, keep in mind that sometimes you are going to have a bad time.

But that’s where the magic of this title lies, and I understand that in all the substitutes that come in the future as well. The games can become incredibly tense when the live player count goes down and every footstep you hear is important in determining the enemy’s position. Sitting in a corner does not guarantee your survival at all, and using the flashlight to orient yourself can have consequences. It is a unique experience, for the good and the bad.

The failures of early access

To be a shooter multiplayer, Bodycam has a Weapons handling something questionable. You have to understand that for Reissad, the great attraction of his production is the graphics and realism; and they have no problem putting the playability at the service of it. Here it’s not that the weapons have unique scatter patterns like in Counter-Strike, but that when you drag the mouse, what you actually move are the eyes of your protagonist: the arms simply follow him and point towards a cursor that It is invisible to you.

In other words, as long as your arms are within your soldier’s field of vision, he does not have to turn. It’s a strange sensation, but one you eventually get used to and it doesn’t affect the course of the game too much. The issue of “where the bullet goes” can be frustrating, but as long as it is a developable skill, I think most of us see it as an indivisible and acceptable part of the difficulty curve of the game.

What I don’t like so much is everything that has to do with managing the game. The connection goes hostsas was done in the lobbies of yore; and strange things often happen when entering the game or crediting victories. At a security level, it doesn’t seem like a very sophisticated game. And not balanced either, I assure you that. Depending on your luck, the quick play queue can last a few seconds or a few hours; and once inside, you will find that all modes are played first in win 10 rounds.

There’s no automatic balancing for teams, so pray that you get a reasonable cast of players and that their personal skill complements your own more or less. If someone decides to sit back and let the timer tick by itself, you have no choice but to wait a long period of time, and the weapons are randomized. I’m crossing my fingers that these kinds of problems are corrected as the early access period progresses, that’s what it’s for, but the idea is that there is an important qualitative leap separating the graphics from the design.

Finally, I consider it important to warn that the performance It’s a bit of a half-baked topic. It hasn’t been too difficult for me to achieve 60 FPS because I have a device that more than meets the recommended Bodycam requirements, but it has been at the cost of raising the CPU and GPU temperatures, using FSR 3 with frame generation and accepting some instabilities . At one point, I ended up giving up and streaming the game to my computer from GeForce Now Ultimate, which uses an RTX 4080. But if I hadn’t had that option, I might not have been as happy with the performance of others. shooter competitive.

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