Tactical shooter Synthetik 2 is coming to Early Access

Synthetik: Legion Rising was a top-down 2D roguelike shooter with deep weapon-handling mechanics like movement-based recoil and active reloading, plus some real meaty gun sounds. It was well-received back in 2018, with a user rating of Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam. Berlin studio Flow Fire Games has announced that the sequel, Synthetik 2, will be arriving in Early Access on August 19 with a full release planned for 2022.

Based on the gameplay trailer above, two minutes of "alpha footage raw combat", the most significant change is that it's gone to a 3D isometric view. Otherwise Synthetik 2 still seems to be broadly the same game of deleting dudes into satisfying big red Xes with guns that hit like a hammer. Fire Flow says Synthetik 2 will have new classes, weapons, and items, the co-op will be bumped up to four players instead of just two, and it'll have integrated modding support.

In advance of its August Early Access release, a demo of Synthetik 2 will be playable during the Steam Next Fest, giving us access to two classes plus "custom class building", a floor full of bad guys to shoot and a boss fight to cap it off. That'll be available on June 16.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.