Watch six minutes of Strange Brigade's co-op shooting, supernatural puzzles and branching levels

In the midst of the E3 maelstrom you might well have missed developer Rebellion's playthrough of Strange Brigade, its supernatural co-op shooter that's due out in late August. But it's worth watching: it's got a decent mix of puzzles and hectic third-person combat alongside branching levels that encourage exploration.

You and up to three friends will have a defined path to tread, and if you want, you can just play it like a straight co-op shooter, Rebellion says in the video. But if you explore you'll find plenty of puzzles that you can solve for better loot, as well as relics that you can combine to unlock new, powerful "amulet powers".

The levels will also branch, allowing your party to split if you fancy it. In the example above, one player opens up a bridge with an energy beam, and then use the beam to set enemies on fire as the rest of the squad polishes them off. Then, the party has two possible routes: a high path with more combat, or a low path with more puzzles.

You get a look at some of the weapon upgrades and amulet powers, too: you'll see one player unload six shots from a revolver one after the other without having to aim (like McCree from Overwatch's deadeye ability), as well as ricocheting bullets and a weapon that chains electric attacks.

I like its sense of humour, and the narrator should provide a few laughs. If you want to find out more, you can read our previous coverage here.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.