$49.99Is Strange Brigade worth it?
Strange Brigade is worth it if…
- you want a light co-op shooter for a couple of relaxed evenings with friends
- you like 1930s pulp adventure, tombs, traps and a narrator with a dry wit
- you enjoy blasting hordes of mummies without learning deep systems
- you want puzzles and treasure hunting between firefights, not a demanding story
Screenshots
Tomb raiding with a sense of humour
This is a 1930s pulp adventure played straight out of an old film serial, and it knows it. You hunt Seteki across nine campaign levels of pyramids, dig sites and crumbling caves, collecting treasure, hunting clues and unearthing secrets as you go. The tone stays light throughout: the story is a backdrop for mayhem, delivered with dry British wit. A deadpan narrator comments on nearly everything you do, and his running commentary is a highlight. If he wears out his welcome, you can turn his chatter down. The whole thing is colourful and bright, more Saturday matinee than grim horror, even when the dead are walking.
Traps, puzzles and prototype firepower
The tombs fight back. Spinning blades, fire traps and boulders let you finish enemies without spending a bullet, and luring a mummy into a well-placed trap never gets old. Between firefights you get quieter stretches: spotting suspicious clues, finding secret entrances and waking ancient contraptions to open the way forward. When the shooting starts, you have real choices. Each of the four agents has their own magical amulet power, and the arsenal runs from standard rifles to oddities like the fire-spitting Krakatoa, the freezing Chill Burster and the bluntly named Blunderbuss. Gems you find can upgrade weapons with effects like freezing enemies or draining health from kills, and once a gem is set it stays put, so choose carefully.
Better with friends in the room
The campaign supports 2-4 player online co-op, and this is where the game is at its best. You and your friends blast through waves of mummies, minotaurs and giant scorpions, split up to work puzzles, and occasionally set a trap under a teammate, purely by accident of course. The dialogue is written with company in mind, full of banter and calls for someone to cover a reload. It stays relaxed: enemies scale reasonably whether you play alone or with three, and nothing demands esports reflexes. Solo works too, but the campaign is linear and the loop of shoot, loot and puzzle can wear thin without someone there to laugh with. Two or three evenings with friends is what this game is built for.
