Despoiler races onto Steam

Futuristic multiplayer arena racer with stunning environments.

A year after the first playable alpha was released, the full version of Despoiler from Brisbane-based studio Parallax Labs has finally gone live. Despoiler is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) inspired by the likes of Counter Strike and Squad, where you work in teams to control resources in a variety of post-apocalyptic badland maps, using futuristic hovercraft-like vehicles.

The main aim in Despoiler is gathering ‘scrap’, by racing to get to it before the other team does: whichever team has the most at the end of the match is the winner. Scrap also functions as armour and as a currency used to buy upgrades and better vehicles.

This game requires a strong element of teamwork and a strategic approach: you can launch sneak attacks on enemies to steal their scrap but if you die then re-spawning will cost you, but put too much energy into defending your base and you will lose out in the race for resources.

The gameplay is 5v5, with AI bots if there are no human players available. The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4 and has stunning visuals with beautiful environments as well as detailed physics. This is the first release from Parallax and the devs were keen to produce a game which combined great graphics and performance with a strong focus on skill-based strategy.

Despoiler has so far received great feedback from Steam reviewers, the only real criticism being the lack of players on the server. That is of course a problem which can easily be fixed, if enough people head over to the Steam store and grab the game while it’s still running a 20% opening week discount! For a different kind of arena battle experience be sure to also check out Guilt Battle Arena.