Obscurity: Unknown Threat - Gore Effects
Obscurity is a game I've been following for quite a while. It came up on the channel's Discord, caught my interest, I interviewed the devs and I've been a fan ever since.
The playtests offered a fun and solid experience, and now the game made it to its early access release. So in this review we'll be looking at the character responses, what makes them a lot of fun, and what I think could be improved.
Body damage
So first up - dismemberment is very much there. The heads can be severed or destroyed, each limb has 3 points of amputation, while I haven't seen a cut in half variation, I have seen what I think is guts sticking out, and after a good amount of torture characters can be obliterated.
The stumps look nice and you have an exceptional amount of gib variations (just watch their technical gore demonstration). Some of the severed head variations look quite cute, which does bring me back to that adorable head variation in Manhunt 2.
The obliterations however should be a lot messier, gibs and blood wise. You can see it in the demonstration with the shotgun, and I have seen some pretty underwhelming results when using explosives too. Characters can get really badly mangled but you might not get a whole lot of mess.
A key feature that makes the response feel impactful here is the non dismembering damage. You have a multi layer system. The top layer of clothes and armor can be covered in blood, and most of it (with the exception of the heavy armor and some pieces of gear) can also get deformed, revealing a bottom layer of bones and meat.
The response will be quite satisfying, especially with the shotgun - those sweet sweet torso hits revealing the ribs. Not-too-devastating explosive hits are a lot of fun too, when they just tear off chunks of flesh and maybe a single limb and a head.
However, there is room for improvements:
The bottom layer on the torso is just going to be generic meat and bones, which doesn't look the greatest. The rib revelations are great, other areas don't look quite as good.
I noticed that some of the wounds look just like a circle and in some instances you have too much of the flesh removed for the specific weapon used. You can see it in the showcase with the rifle impacts, individual hits often don't look quite as good. But when you mag dump or use a heavier weapon it will be a lot more fun.
So what I would suggest is much smaller holes for things like the M16 or pistols, and tweaking the blood around it to deliver somewhat more interesting results. Shotguns and MGs however should absolutely keep tearing off a good bit of flesh. That's what they were made for.
And there is the issue, which is primarily relevant to the torso, that the bottom layer can't be damaged. So, unless you do enough damage for an obliteration it will feel that you can only skin the character. As I've discussed in the horde shooter special, it's not unique to this game and at the moment most games with multi layer systems will have this issue.
Environment
When it comes to blood spilling, if you hit a character and blood splashes - it will stain the ground, and if you see blood pouring - that will stain the ground as well. I have seen milder bleeding stains too for injured characters running around.
And a pleasant touch we don't have in most games - I've seen vegetation get stained in blood too.
The looks are going to be violent splats. Those work well for the initial impacts, but the issue is - they're used for everything. So blood pouring down from characters (alive or dead) will leave violent looking splats too, rather than something like a puddle.
And that is the main issue with the gore system at the moment.
Another thing that could be improved is how long the mess lasts. So in Elimination mode, and as far as I recall the main Obscurity mode too - bodies will stick around until the end of the round (they can be interacted with and they're synchronized between the players). But things like gibs, bits and the blood will vanish without a way to configure that.
A note about the blood - decals will stick around for a good while, but in 5 minute matches in Elimination I have seen them vanish before the round ends. And I have seen some stains vanish short time after spawning too.
I can get the disappearing mess in the free for all mode (especially with bodies being synchronized), but I think in YOLO game modes you should have the option to let all of the mess remain until the end of the round. If your PC can handle it, you should be able to keep the gibs too. In the case of head destruction there's actually quite a good amount of them.
Animations
In this aspect, we have a lot more than just flinching on impacts. You can shoot weapons out of character's hands, characters can get knocked over, there is a health system that takes bleeding and broken limbs into account, and you can have characters survive dismemberment and some pretty nasty mutilation.
Many of the injury consequences (such as pain and broken limbs) can be alleviated by healing (holding ALT), but not dismemberment. Once something comes off you have to live with the consequences of that for the rest of the round. That may mean just crawl and shoot (after you stop the bleeding), or using a pistol with your left arm because that's all you have left. And if someone shoots that pistol out of your hand - punching is your last resort.
Now usually, when you have something like that - many of the consequences being just temporary, and having characters take quite a lot of damage before going out, those are things I'm not a fan of.
But here I think it works well, and the key reason for that is the visualization. With the multi layer system of the game you get a really satisfying response for those non fatal hits. It's just fun having someone come at you with his ribs exposed and his arm being reduced to bone.
And that is legitimately what makes Obscurity stand out compared to other games with a similar TTK. Instead of characters being unresponsive bullet sponges you get satisfying visual feedback in the body damage department. And you see them scramble to patch themselves up, giving you a chance to finish them.
Conclusion
The gameplay has those mid to late 00`s vibes, which is no surprise since it originated as a mod for the 2007 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. And around that time, I was legitimately dreaming of seeing the responses in combat look like that.
I've seen quite a few games aim for a similar vibe gameplay wise (when it comes to just human vs human character gunplay), but none of them deliver the response that Obscurity does. So that combination of the fun solid gameplay, the game hitting that nostalgia feel and the response on the receiving end, are the factors that made me a fan as soon as I tried it.
With that being said, here are the key points of feedback from this review:
The main thing that could use improvement is the blood spilling. Having different looking results between the initial impact and further spilling. It really could use a blood puddling system.
And I think with some tweaks to how the multi layer response is activated you could get it to feel even more impactful. Also, a destructible bottom layer (damage variations, doesn't have to be anything dynamic) with overhauled looks would be sweet.
But even with those, I think it delivers a really enjoyable and a responsive experience, so I absolutely can recommend it.
You can get Obscurity: Unknown Threat here.
A key to the game was provided to me ahead of release free of charge.
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