Gamescom 2009: Brütal Legend Multiplayer Preview

Rob Halford, Lemmy Kilmeister, Ozzy Osbourne, Lita Ford, Tim Curry, Kyle Gass and Jack Black.  Now which of these people don’t rock your socks off?  Oh that’s right it’s Tim Curry.  Anyway let’s have a look at the Brütal Legend multiplayer.

Whilst in the EA business area at Gamescom I saw an ominous looking sign above a door that read Brütal Legend. Before I knew it I was ushered into a room along with a group of other journalists to behold the presence of Tim ‘Freakin’ Schafer; a man ready to show us the surprisingly beefy multiplayer of his new game.

Brütal Legend’s multiplayer is surprisingly a lot like how a real time strategy would play in which the basic set up is you have a stage, your opponent has a stage and you go out into the field in order to capture fans which count as resources.  Got that?  Alright then, let me elaborate somewhat.  You have to win over the potential fanbase by playing a guitar riff which should look all too familiar to Guitar Hero and Rock Band players.  You can even play bigger guitar riffs like the Bring It On Home solo which then summons a giant zeppelin from the sky that crashes down upon your enemy.  I didn’t ask but I can only assume that this zeppelin was made of ‘Led’.

Each combatant has his own unique stage, merchandise booth and units.  And units is what the multiplayer in Brütal Legend is all about.  When you play as the humans you can summon units such as headbangers who will form a protective shield around you, and razor girls who jump onto your shoulder and let you fire their crossbow.  When playing as the Tainted Coil side you can summon units like soul kissers who basically use melee attacks, but you can also pick them up and throw them at the enemy.  I thought the range of individual units was well thought out and implemented if I can be honest, there seems to be more depth here than I thought there would be.

Each side can summon a fan leech which basically poisons the opponents fans thus making it impossible for them to get any new ones within that area.  After you destroy these you can then build a new merchandise booth, which essentially acts as a rally point for your fans.  The object of multiplayer is destroying the opponent’s stage, but you can only do this when you have gathered enough fans.  The units range from melee to ranged, vehicular and aerial and like many strategy titles you’ll also have to build certain structures in order to access a new tier of units.

Your stage itself can also be upgraded as you go from a simple stage up to a stage with pyrotechnics, massive video walls and smoke machines which you can then activate to bolster the morale of your fans.  The vehicles, yeah that’s right…you can get into these and drive right into your enemy for massive damage.  Did I say massive damage?  You know what I meant.

Just like the main campaign, the multiplayer mode is full of winks at the world of heavy metal.  I’m not sure that most non-metal fans will appreciate this but the uniqueness of the multiplayer should appeal to even the most ardent country and western fan.  If there are enough maps included with the final release then I can perhaps see Brütal Legend’s multiplayer becoming more popular than its single player in a way similar to the ongoing success of Call of Duty 4.  With four on four matches also on offer I’m pretty confident when I say that one session could likely go for a good hour depending on the quality, and patience of a group of players.  that itself may also prove to be a failing with a game such as this, especially when you look at the frequency of disconnects over Xbox LIVE when a match of Hardcore Team Deathmatch on CoD4 is going poorly for the host.  With all the latest attempts at bringing the RTS to the console it’s strange to see a game in which the single player isn’t like an RTS at all.  I guess we’ll find out in just over a month when Brütal Legend officially hits the shelves so check back really soon for an in depth look at all the units that’ll be at your disposal.