Hood: Outlaws & Legends Review – Petty Theft

On paper, Hood: Outlaws and Legends has rather a lot going for it. It is a aggressive riff on the co-op multiplayer heist sport the place two groups of 4 merry women and men concurrently try to unlock a vault and extract a large chest of gold. Its stealthy race to elude computer-controlled knights and rival gamers hardly ever performs out with the grace implied by the idea. Extra typically, the competitors for keys, chests, and respawn factors devolve into protracted brawls that showcase Hood’s clumsy fight, moderately than dynamic stealth. Throw in some complicated UI, simply exploitable stealth-kill mechanics, and myriad small design flaws, and Hood’s execution fails to ship the products it is promised.

Every match in Hood has 4 phases. First, somebody must steal the vault key from the invincible (however usually unaware) Sheriff. Second, you discover and open the vault. Third, somebody carries the chest to at least one of some extraction factors on the map. As soon as the chest is locked in, one or two gamers use a winch to carry the chest whereas the others defend them. The “different workforce,” in the meantime, has alternatives to disrupt the mission to attempt to purchase the important thing or chest for themselves. With each groups naturally assembly at a couple of key areas, you’ve loads of alternatives to shock and overtake the target.

On this idealized model of the sport, the match is a coordinated stealth run, the place every character makes use of their distinctive abilities to advance the mission or assist their teammates. Every of the 4 characters theoretically has a job to play: Marianne, the stealthiest fighter, strikes rapidly and has skills that allow her steal the important thing or assassinate enemies discreetly. Robin’s bow permits him to take out enemies from afar. Little John can carry gates and transfer the chest rapidly. Tooke is a strong backup fighter with a wide-reaching melee assault and a therapeutic capability. Although a few of these abilities make sure characters well-suited to completely different duties, there isn’t any second the place you want a selected character and their abilities. This opens the door for gamers to decide on characters based mostly on their playstyles, but in addition minimizes the significance of class-based play across the heist itself.

Finally, the character fight skills matter greater than their different affinities. Although Hood is primarily pitched as a sport about heists, issues get extra chaotic and aggressive whenever you add one other workforce of gamers. Slightly than choosing one another off or a coordinated ambush, most matches devolve right into a sequence of workforce battles for management of the important thing, the chest, or the winch. As soon as the preventing begins, any pretense of a stealth mission falls away. The AI-controlled knights, whereas highly effective sufficient to overwhelm anyone participant if they’re in giant numbers, are nonetheless straightforward sufficient to keep away from that the majority gamers will interact one another even when it means getting noticed by them. Even the sheriff, who immediately kills you when he will get in vary and might solely be briefly shocked, is gradual sufficient that you would be able to battle round him.

Hood’s unwieldy fight mechanics make giant battles painful whether or not you win or lose. Although each character has some capability for hand-to-hand preventing, Hood’s melee assaults really feel loose–they’re tough to intention or time effectively. On the receiving finish, most assaults stun barely, resulting in a scenario in giant battles the place a single hit will go away you stun-locked. In principle, you’ve both a parry or dodge to maintain an enemy from hitting you, nevertheless it’s almost inconceivable to maintain monitor of the motion in a scrum. These giant clumsy battles can flip into minutes-long wars of attrition the place gamers battle, die, respawn, and run proper again into the fray till one aspect wipes the opposite out, giving themselves sufficient time to make progress. That is very true within the winching section of the match, the place one workforce must defend a set level.

Hood’s unwieldy fight mechanics make giant battles painful whether or not you win or lose

Then there’s the assassination situation. Any participant can stealth kill an opponent by crouching behind them and hitting a immediate. It would not matter if the murderer’s already been seen or even when the 2 have been preventing beforehand. This continuously results in conditions the place one participant will interact one other overtly, solely to get assassinated by one other opponent ready within the wings. Getting assassinated mid-fight feels abrupt and inappropriate within the scenario and, at occasions, it feels unavoidable and is due to this fact extraordinarily aggravating. Equally, Robin Hood can kill different gamers with a totally charged headshot. Whereas it is not all the time potential to land one, particularly whereas getting attacked, it additionally results in irritating sudden deaths out and in of fight. Whereas this sort of fight appears acceptable for a stealthy fight expertise, its unregulated use feels extra disruptive than additive; extra like an exploit than a well-considered mechanic.

Since a workforce can get worn out rapidly, matches can activate a dime. Simply because your workforce acquired the important thing and moved it to an extraction level would not have any bearing on whether or not or not you may beat the opposite workforce. All you should do to win is winch the final of seven progress pips. I’ve had matches the place my workforce did all the work, solely to have the match stolen on the final second, and I’ve additionally stolen matches on the final second in the identical trend. Nonetheless, the one reward for match progress 9 occasions out of 10 is expertise. Generally a steal feels earned, however typically it would not. Both approach, it would not really feel like the higher workforce all the time wins.

Whether or not you play the target otherwise you go after the opposite workforce, Hood requires a variety of coordination. The perfect groups assault as a bunch and discover methods to cater to their finest gamers’ strengths. Hood contains a ping system that permits for some nonverbal communication, however whenever you’re predicting enemy actions or noting one thing not in direct line of sight, you want to have the ability to say extra. It additionally helps to relay intel whenever you get it: For instance, whenever you steal the important thing, you be taught the placement of the vault, which is not on the map. With out chat, it could be inconceivable to share that data. Hood’s in-game social gathering chat is on by default, which appears to immediate matchmaking-assembled teams to talk greater than different multiplayer video games, however there isn’t any substitute for taking part in this sport with buddies.

You possibly can expertise the pure heist model of the sport and not using a second set of gamers, however sadly that PvE expertise is relegated to a “apply” mode, which does not provide you with any expertise or gold to unlock and earn cosmetics or character perks. With none alternative to expertise a story or make meta-progress, the apply feels barely wasteful of time, particularly since it is also not nice apply for the primary PvPvE expertise.

That stated, I do not suppose it is an issue that Hood sidesteps the lore that so many multiplayer video games really feel compelled to construct. Actually, Hood deftly makes use of the Robin Hood fable to get round it. There’s nearly no story in Hood–you can earn text-based snippets of character data, however there isn’t any plot, per se. Whereas that leaves open the query of why there are two rival bands of thieves, the story would not actually really feel lacking. All you really want to know is that Robin Hood and his band of thieves–Little John, Father Tuck, and Maid Marian–steal from the wealthy and provides to the poor. Chances are high, when you have been drawn to this sport there is a good likelihood you’ve got acquired the gist already.

It isn’t with out its personal sense of favor, although. Hood does attempt to put its personal barely darker, edgier spin on the Robin Hood universe. The character designs are extra intimidating than the easy inexperienced garb. Tooke, Hood’s tackle Friar Tuck, seems to be extra like a shaman than a monk. (Additionally, within the lore, he is a reformed church Inquisitor who tortured enemies of the state earlier than going rogue). The extra brutal aesthetic touches really feel in step with all of the killing you do on any given heist, however with none actual story to highlight these characterization modifications, they do not actually register. It has been some time since I’ve seen any of the Robin Hood motion pictures so I am unable to say for positive, however I believe the most important distinction between Hood and different Robin Hood diversifications could also be that that is the primary time I’ve ever heard Robin Hood say “F**ok.”

However with out attention-grabbing characters or a narrative the main target falls solely on the gameplay, and Hood’s gameplay feels sloppy. It is a heist sport that often devolves right into a wild, irritating melee fight enviornment. In its finest moments, it is a tense, extremely cooperative expertise, however these moments by no means final lengthy. I need to consider within the aggressive heist Hood tries to drag off and, in principle, a residing multiplayer sport might evolve into one thing higher over time. (There are already plans to introduce a brand new sport mode, map, and character for all gamers throughout the subsequent 12 months). Nonetheless, there are too many factors of frustration constructed into the expertise to anticipate that Hood’s evolution can be transformative.