Due Process is brutal, gorgeous and hitting Early Access this week

(Image credit: Annapurna)

Due Process is a competitive FPS where lots of little bits feel familiar, but the experience is new. Developed by Giant Enemy Crab and published by Annapurna Interactive, the game has been in a beta phase for some time but, as of this week, enters Early Access on Steam.

The game is currently unlisted, though you can buy it here, but hold it right there citizen. As announced on the Due Process Discord: “We will take the next step and move to Early Access this week at a time and place of our choosing. With the Early Access release will come a substantial discount. Additionally, we will continue our buy-one-get-one offer for a little longer.”

So: it’s gonna be cheaper later this week, and you’ll get two copies for that price.

Why might you be interested? Imagine Counter-Strike, but with new maps in every game, and thus more focus on planning and executing tactics on-the-fly. Due Process’s map pool is already absolutely enormous, and is assembled through procedurally-generated maps which are then ‘curated’ or improved-upon by the developers. Each week brings a tranche of new maps, with most recent updates seeming to add at least 40.

The bomber setup room in Due Process. — The setup phase before each round is considerable, but each team has to choose from a limited supply of equipment and plan their strategy. (Image credit: Annapurna Interactive)

Atop this is layered a tactical map, which each team member can draw on, and which shows those doodles in first-person view. Yes obviously a lot of people just draw cocks, but it’s a genuinely useful… erm, tool.

Due Process has its own distinct style in other areas, most notably the beautifully chunky lo-fi art style, which pairs up with a boomtastic line in audio-visual effects. This game loves an explosion, it loves that moment of impact when one team rushes another with flashbangs and flashlights, and very often you will die thanks to disorientation as much as who shot you.

This isn’t going to be for everyone. It’s brutal at times, and few competitive experiences expose a lack of teamwork quite so explicitly. But it also brings something fresh to one of the most hotly-contested genres around: if you've ever felt you know Dust II better than your own living room, then a little Due Process may be advisable.

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."