Silica preview: FPS/RTS hybrid has potential

How many games that combine real-time strategy and first-person shooter gameplay have you played? Likely none, or at least very few, though I recently got some hands-on experience with a game called Silica, which is looking to do just that. 

It's a hard genre combination to get right, and it requires developers to flesh out two drastically different styles of gameplay without favouring one and forgetting the other. Despite the challenges of making a game like this, and promises that both aspects of the gameplay will receive the attention they need, I'm not fully convinced that it's worked out yet.

• Find Silica on Steam

Starship Troopers

Silica is set in the future and takes place on the desert exoplanet of Baltarus, where a powerful substance called Balterium was discovered. As expected, humans began to fight over control of the resource, leading to a conflict between two human armies that woke the insect-like alien species underneath the sands. This conflict sets the stage for the events of the game, where all three factions are caught in a war to control the Balterium and drive the others away permanently. 

When diving into the game, you'll have a choice of three modes, Prospector, Strategy, and Arena. Prospector is an FPS-only mode that won't be available until after the early access release, Strategy is the standard battle for dominance that combines the FPS and RTS gameplay, while Arena is an FPS free-for-all that warns you it's unbalanced. 

I only got to try out Strategy, where I spent about 30 minutes each with the aliens and humans, while also dipping my toes into the real-time strategy commander gameplay. 

Unnatural selection

One of the most glaring issues with Silica right now is the lack of onboarding and tutorials, making it a challenge to understand what it is you're supposed to do, and what it is you actually can do. 

I was fortunate enough to spend some time in a Discord call with the game's developer while playing, who gave us plenty of tips on how to play and instructions on what the general goal was. However, when I switched to a different channel after swapping to another faction, there were multiple players who still had zero idea what the actual goal was. 

Essentially, all three factions will fight it out with the goal of destroying the other two or having the most resources by the time the match timer hits zero. Each base is spawned randomly on the map, and until a player takes on the role of commander, the AI will get to work building the base, creating units, and building up resources. 

Another problem quickly became apparent while playing as the aliens though, as balance obviously favours the human factions right now. For starters, the aliens have no access to ranged weaponry (at least with the current units) and considering all teams had the same amount of players, we couldn't overwhelm them with our numbers, and it was like a game of duck hunt for the other players as they picked us off from afar whenever we tried to leave the base. 

The base itself was also spawned directly between both human bases, causing them to quickly overwhelm and destroy us before we could even attempt to mount an effective defence or switch up tactics. The game's developer, Dram, was very understanding of these problems during a Q and A session afterwards, claiming to be working on balancing spawns and units, creating new units, and more. The balance may be better when the early access launches, but these aren't simple problems to fix and right now, it's just better to be part of the human factions. 

Pitch black

As a combination of real-time strategy and first-person shooter, Silica essentially needs to create two separate yet engaging gameplay loops that also complement each other. Its scope is grand for sure, but both types of gameplay don't really stand on their own, feeling like watered-down versions of the genres the game is exploring. 

Starting with the FPS side, most of the time I felt like I was aimlessly wandering the map in search of something to do. Considering the game has to work on an RTS level, the maps have been massively scaled up, but getting around the map can take longer than I'd have liked. You do have the option of claiming vehicles that the AI drive or the commander spawns in, or you can use a teleporter to spawn anywhere another teammate has vision. 

However, as I mentioned in the previous section, the game doesn't explain any of these features, and even finding these areas in the huge, nondescript, bland bases was difficult, as nothing really stands out in the wash of greys and browns. 

When you finally get to experience some conflict, it becomes obvious how undercooked the FPS elements of the game are, thanks to flat shooting that lacks feedback. Even getting shot and taking damage is barely communicated, and I died a couple of times with no idea when or where I was taking hits. 

I have less to say about the RTS mode simply because I didn't get to spend a whole lot of time in there, but it suffers from some of the same issues that make it feely really thin on depth or options. This could also be because by the time I took control as an alien commander, our base was on the verge of being destroyed and I had barely any resources to work with. 

Final Thoughts

Silica is a grand concept, and I'm glad it exists purely because these big spectacle multiplayer experiences are less common these days, with a decade-old game like Planetside 2 being one of the few places you can scratch a similar itch. There's something under the surface here, but much of Silica's future will depend on Bohemia helping players get to it.

Previewed on PC. Code provided by publisher.