Intruder is a multiplayer stealth shooter with tactical banana peels, now in Early Access

Back in 2014, Chris said team-based stealth shooter Intruder reminded him "of the golden age of Half-Life 1 modding". Five years later, the game has come a long way—but it still needs extra polish, which is why developer Superboss Games is finally sending it into Steam Early Access.

It's a 5v5 shooter in which one side controls heavily-armed guards, the other controls a group of fragile spies armed with lockpicks, mirrors to see around corners, and...banana peels to make enemies slip up. The spies must infiltrate a building to capture an objective, while the guards have to use their firepower and set traps to keep the enemies at bay.

The spies are what really set Intruder apart: they use binoculars to scout the target building from afar, crawl through vents, silently open doors and hide in plant pots, waiting for the guards to run past. The game has a balance system, and if you try too many acrobatics your accuracy will worsen and, eventually, you'll fall over—hence why the banana skins are useful.

The guard gadgets are more conventional (think decoys and remote explosives) but still look fun to mess around with, and there are plenty of opportunities for subterfuge away from gadgets on both sides. There are no hit markers or kill confirmations, and you can ragdoll at any time, so if you're shot then going limp might not be a bad idea. When your enemy, presuming you're dead, runs past you can pop up and shoot them in the head.

Voice chat is spatial so you can eavesdrop on enemy conversations—but you can also communicate through in-game hand signals to negate that.

Currently, Intruder offers four official maps, plus many more created by users via the built-in level editor. There are only four weapons, but Superboss plans to add more, as well as more maps and gadgets, during Early Access, which will last up to two years.

It's $20/£15.49 on Steam, and you can see the Early Access Steam trailer above.

Thanks, RPS.

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.